


That’s Really Nice

by ChapstickLez, Googlemouth



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-07 00:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChapstickLez/pseuds/ChapstickLez, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Googlemouth/pseuds/Googlemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giovanni’s offer of a threesome meets with an odd reaction from Maura which takes Jane several weeks to really understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2.03 Sailor Man

**Author's Note:**

> Rizzoli & Isles belongs to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro, TNT, and the host of writers, producers, cast, and crew who create the show we love to watch. We are not any of those people.
> 
> Co-written by Googlemouth and Chapsticklez. This is our first work together, but I sincerely hope it won’t be our last. Be nice and welcoming to Chapsticklez, everyone. 
> 
> Special thanks to Twitter’s Jacqofun, who found me a transcript of the final scene of episode 2.09, “Gone Daddy Gone.” It was very helpful when we were writing the beginning of that scene, to have the jumping-off point.
> 
> Spoilers will be identified by the title of each chapter, which will be named for the episode airing immediately before or during that chapter (that is, if you haven’t seen anything past episode 2.08, for instance, don’t read the chapter called 2.08, but feel free to read the chapters up to and including the one called 2.06, unless you want to be spoiled). If you want to watch (and rewatch and re-rewatch…) the scene that immediately precedes the beginning of this story, try this link:
> 
> http: //www .youtube .com/watch?v=0BgIVHbeZ7g
> 
> You can find me on Twitter as @Googlemouth, and my writing partner as @chapsticklez.

“What the crap did you just say in there?” Jane demanded as she drove Angela’s car off the lot and away from Gilberti Auto Body Shoppe.  _“That’s nice?_  What’s nice?” Impatient hands gripped the steering wheel as she waited out the traffic light down the corner.

Maura was silent, smiling out the window with unfocused eyes. Jane had to repeat herself. “Come on, Maur’, what was so nice about it? He just invited us to a threesome.”

“Mm,” Maura agreed, but did not sound fully committed to the agreement. “But it was still nice.”

Belatedly, Jane turned on her blinker, though it didn’t matter much because she was already halfway through the turn. Someone behind them honked to remind her of her poor road etiquette. She paid no mind. “Nice how? Nice as in, well, I can’t think of anything else to say, so why don’t I say something that doesn’t make any sense?”

“Mm,” came the sound of unconcern once more. It was pissing Jane off, even though her ranting was having its effect at lessening that disturbing dreaminess in Maura’s gaze.

“Well, okay,” Jane replied, scowling as she had done back at the garage, and flipping the bird to a motorist who tried to cut her off from the turn-only lane. “So maybe you meant oh, it’s so  _nice_ that this chucklehead managed to string together an entire sentence? Even if it was about him perving on us. Like we’d be interested in that. Huh!” The husky-voiced woman was driving safely, but a bit more rapidly than she normally would with Maura in the car. “I mean, come on. Is he that clueless? If we were a real couple, he would have  _seriously_  overstepped, just now.”

“Mm,” the sound came a third time, “but we’re not. And after all, you can’t blame him for trying. If you want something, there’s nothing quite like asking, for yielding results.” Still woolgathering, she lifted one hand from her lap and held it out the window to feel the air as it supported her forearm and toyed with her fingers. “Giovanni had no way of knowing for certain that we would say no until he asked. And who knows…”

Jane glanced once fleetingly at Maura, then again for a longer moment as they slowed to take an exit on their way to the caramel-brunette’s house. “Who knows  _what?”_  Alarm showed clearly in the planes and angles of her chiseled face.

This time, it caught Maura’s attention enough to at least entice her to look in Jane’s direction, though she seemed still to be a bit cloudy-headed, a bit daydreamy. “Who knows?” she repeated, smiling, and did not explain.

By this time, they were pulling into Maura’s neighborhood. It was a gated community with turning, twisting avenues, designed before the days of GPS guidance systems in cars in order to confuse those who didn’t belong there. Even having visited often enough to know her way blind, Jane had to concentrate on navigation, so she could not ask further questions until she had pulled into her friend’s two-car driveway and shut off the engine. “No, wait,” she reached out to grasp Maura by the forearm, stopping her from unfastening her seat belt and exiting the vehicle. “You need to tell me what you meant. Who knows what?”

The smaller woman’s head tilted to one side as she gave Jane a look that all but sang out,  _Come on, keep up,_  as if the answer should have been obvious. When it appeared that Jane did not take her point yet, Maura’s countenance took on an air of doubt. “Are you telling me you’d never even consider it?”

“ _Ew,”_  Jane responded with genuine disgust. “Really, Maura? Seriously, you actually think I’d consider getting into a threesome with that dumbass? Come on, he wanted to lick your face. _Lick_  your  _face._  In whose book is that normal or appealing?” She got out of the car, slamming the door a bit harder than was strictly necessary, and headed for the house. She had her key out first, the one given to her for emergencies, and she let both of them into Maura’s place without a second thought as the house’s actual owner trailed behind, suppressing most outward signs of amusement.

Divesting herself of gun, badge, and blazer and putting them away in their respectively assigned places, the detective became – at least nominally – a private citizen again. A disgusted private citizen. “I grew up with that guy, right? So believe me, when I say he’s gross, he is  _gross._ Giovanni may have only told you he wanted to lick your face, but I actually know girls who dated him in high school. I know what some of them have said about him, the things he likes to do. Believe me, face-licking is pretty low on the Gross-O-Meter when it comes to him.”

She stopped and cleared her throat. “I mean, I can admit he looks all right. Okay, he looks really great. And I might have had kind of a thing for him when I we were in school together, before I heard some of that stuff from Andrea Talucci. But now? No. No, I would not even come close to considering getting into a ride at an amusement park with him, or an arm wrestling match, let alone getting into bed with him.” Then she paused, turning to face her best friend with an accusatory glare. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that you  _would_  consider it?”

Silence.

Maura’s head tilted, inviting Jane to follow her own observations and draw a conclusion. She held the pose for a moment, then began putting away her purse, charging her phone, washing her hands, and taking care of the other minutiae of arrival at home, as if Jane hadn’t just asked her something heavy, and as if she had given a perfectly reasonable response.

As the quiet stretched out between them, Jane found her eyebrows lifting slowly, so slowly, and her head tipping forward and down at the same pace, such that her expression melted seamlessly between indifference to absolute disbelief. “You’re thinking about it right now,” she realized.

* * *

The smaller woman had a way of looking like she thought everything she was doing or saying was perfectly reasonable, logical, and normal, especially when it wasn’t, and that was the way she looked as she began to nod. However, almost immediately she qualified the nonverbal assertion, pausing in her hand drying to give better attention to her friend. Her BFF. Her LLBFF, in fact. “Well… Not exactly.”

Jane sat down in one of the stools tucked beneath the kitchen counter top. It was intended to be a graceful slide of rump into seat, but instead was a heavy and almost clumsy landing. She was well on her way to discombobulated. “Seriously,” murmured, staring off into space. Maura allowed herself a private smile as she left Jane to think, fetching them both glasses of ice water before taking dinner fixings out of the refrigerator. She had prepared them the night before, and now it only needed a wok, a stirrer, and some heat before it would be a lovely chicken and vegetable stir-fry. She turned on the burner and set the wok atop it to heat.

“Seriously.”

The ersatz chef pulled an apron over her light blue dress and turned to take a look at her friend as she tied its strings at the small of her back. The lanky woman, usually so self-assured as to verge on cocky, sat slumped and round-shouldered at the countertop, expression stunned. “Perhaps,” Maura told her responded quietly, “but not exactly.”

Jane sat almost perfectly still as Maura tossed the diced chicken into the heated oil and stirred it swiftly until the sizzling calmed down and the meat had turned from pink to white. As the diminutive woman removed the meat to a plate and tossed in handsful of fresh vegetables, setting off another round of steam and sizzling, the detective stirred herself and asked, “What do you mean, not exactly?”

Maura smiled over the food, facial expression turning just a little bit dreamy once again. “I mean, I considered… certain elements of Giovanni’s suggestion to be unobjectionable, and even appealing, but not all of them. Will you set the table?” She tossed the meat back into the vegetables once the latter were warm through, but still crispy. The darker woman remained reticent, though she did acquiesce to the request as her hostess stirred the dinner elements together, served the meal into two wide, shallow bowls, then tossed a few crunchies and some roasted slivered almonds atop each. “Here, Jane,” she offered as she carried both bowls to the set table. “Eat.”

Just about halfway into the meal, Jane realized she had been staring at her friend, eating the fresh, crisp, fragrant food without tasting it at all. Maura didn’t seem to notice, but maybe that was because she too kept losing focus, gazing off into nowhere.

She cleared her throat, took a sip of water, cleared her throat again. “Hey,” she started off conversationally, then stopped. She had no idea where to take it from there. Jane’s lips pressed together as she thought about it, and as she thought, her expression and posture became more and more hesitant, more reluctant. Her head shook; she would let it go, if permitted.

Permitted, however, she was not. “You want to know which elements,” Maura surmised aloud.

There was no response.

“I’ll tell you if you ask,” added the woman as she pick up a small bite with her chopsticks, ate it, and waited.

As she was about to speak again, this time to permit the subject change, Jane found her voice. “No.  _Don’t_  tell me what you’d be doing in bed with Giovanni freakin’ Gilberti.”

“Well, nothing, actually,” Maura said with an open smile. “He really did make me feel nauseous. If, as you say, face-licking is the least of his potentially offensive bedroom behavior, then I really don’t want to find out about the rest. Giovanni wasn’t one of the elements of his scenario that I felt I wanted to preserve.”

Nonplussed, Jane sat back in her chair. “Oh,” she said with visible and audible relief. “Well… okay.” She sat for a moment, and Maura sat too. Momentarily, both went back to eating.

The meal was finished and Jane had started loading the dishwasher – it was her habit, whenever Maura was the one to cook – when a thought occurred to her. “Hey, Maur’? If Giovanni wasn’t part of it, what… Um. Wait a minute,” she ground to a verbal halt, having tripped over the realization that she was about to ask her best friend a question she herself wouldn’t want to answer. “Never mind.”

“Never mind because you think I’ll be embarrassed or offended, or never mind because you don’t want to know?” Maura asked as she removed the place mats and wiped down the table. As she rounded the kitchen island to shake out her cleaning cloth and rinse it, the smaller woman realized there was another nuance to question. “Or is it that you do want to know, but you don’t want to ask? If you really want to know the answer, I’ll give it to you.”

The problem was Jane did and didn’t want to know the answer at the same time. Wait, was that what Maura meant when she talked about Schrödinger? Crap, now that made sense! “The problem,” she said aloud, slowly, pouring after dinner drinks, “the problem is you’ll tell me the truth if I ask you.”

Maura looked at Jane curiously. “Of course I will.”

Jane made a groan of frustration. “See? You see? If you just answered it right away, I wouldn’t worry about it. Now I gotta think about it.” She absently handed Maura her wineglass and walked into the living room. “You never make things easy,” grumbled Jane. And before fear could win out, again, she asked, “Why would it be ‘nice?’” In trying to make air quotes, Jane nearly spilled her beer.

The petite woman before her moved quickly, one hand darting forth, fingertips supporting the bottom of the sweating beer bottle to avoid spillage. “Well, why  _wouldn’t_  it be nice?” asked Maura, not quite as rhetorically as Jane would have liked. On her way to the sofa after Jane, she laid out her reasons, as if it were something quite normal. “Sex is nice. Sex with attractive partners is nice. I can’t say I’ve seriously considered simultaneous multiple partners, but I can see where the appeal might lie, of course – after all, if one attractive person is great, two could theoretically be even better.”

Before Jane could voice her thoughts concerning that little assertion, however, Maura continued on, taking her seat on the couch and crossing her legs up beneath her, showing every sign of relaxation. No, this wasn’t an awkward conversation. Not at all. “In the balance, though, I’d have to think that there would be logistical issues that would prevent such an encounter from being as satisfying as the fantasy alone. In a daydream, everything goes the way you want it. In reality, you’re working with two other people, and each of them has their own fantasy about how it should play out. In each person’s fantasy, they’re usually the one that would be, as it were, in the middle. In reality, the other two people are focusing on one person, or two people are focusing on one another, a majority of the time. At a relatively early point within such an encounter, one person will become superfluous and ignored.” With almost-successful nonchalance, the too-frank woman concluded, “It doesn’t strike me as something that would be all that enjoyable, outside the realm of fantasy.”

“Sounds boring. For that one person.” Jane worried her teeth along one thumbnail. “Now it sounds like you’re saying you wouldn’t like it, but Maur’, I know you said it would be nice, so what’s the nice part, if it’s not Giovanni and it’s not the idea of two other partners?”

Gaze directed down into her wine glass, Maura murmured, again with a lightness that suggested surface unconcern over the faint undertone of unease, “Other aspects.” She lifted the glass to her lips, adding just before the sip, “The company, for instance.”

The beer had yet to actually make it to Jane’s lips throughout that explanation. She swallowed once, then took a drink to stall for time. Her brain screamed for a moment. Maura thought the company, Jane herself, would be pleasant. Jane took another swig from her bottle. It was safe right now to agree with what Maura said. She swirled the bottle, letting the amber liquid swish a couple times. Just because Jane could lie didn’t mean that she ever really wanted to lie with Maura. It made things awkward later on, and Jane wanted Maura to always trust her. “I think,” Jane said slowly, trying to place her emotions in the right place. “More than anything else, I don’t like the idea of Giovanni watching me have sex.”

Wasn’t that the truth? She didn’t like the idea of Giovanni watching her have sex, that was totally true. He was sleazy beyond belief. But more than that, and this was the part Jane didn’t know what to do with, was she didn’t want him watching  _Maura_  have sex. With anyone. The feeling had a name and she found it after her third sip of beer, and Jane started to choke, coughing and trying not to spit beer over the table, floor and Bass, while her poor brain informed her she was… jealous… of Giovanni taking Maura on a date.

“That aspect didn’t appeal to me, either,” Maura replied mildly, glancing elsewhere. It would be easy to convince herself that she was doing so in order to give Jane some privacy from scrutiny, but the detective was very good at discerning motivations. She could zero in on the ‘wrong thing’ that almost anyone was hiding, and it was easier for her when looking her subject in the eye.

Jane narrowed her eyes over her bottle and frowned a little. “So. Basically you’re saying the part of his idea that you did like was the, uh, company?” Jane crossed and un-crossed her ankles. “The me part.” Flippantly she added, “Is this your way of telling me that you’re attracted to me?” She wanted the answer to be no and yes at the same time, and suddenly her palms were sweating.

Studying the set of Jane’s features, the tension in her shoulders and the not-quite-light tone of voice, Maura knew with certainty, “You’re uncomfortable. I’m sorry, Jane. At the time I really wasn’t aware that I’d even spoken aloud. I wish I hadn’t.” Relaxation evaporated, leaving her looking almost as tightly wound as her best friend at the other end of the couch.

Reflexively, Jane put her hand on Maura’s knee. “I’m not – That’s not.” She sighed and slouched in the couch. “I asked, y’know. I knew what I was asking.” Knowing what to do with the information was another thing. That Maura hadn’t answered the question was answer enough for her. “You’re my LLBFF.” Jane reached over and poked at Maura’s ribs. “I’d totally be a fake lesbian for you any time.”

“I know,” replied Maura softly as her eyes dropped to Jane’s hand on her knee. From the kitchen came the scraping sounds of Bass’s shell against the lower edge of the kitchen cabinets, on his way to investigate the offering of organic spinach that she had left for him. “I know. Thank you for that. I suppose that’s another thing that wouldn’t work as well in reality.” Her wry smile did not quite reach her eyes.

The human brain needed a DVR replay function, Jane thought. At least, hers did. She was sure Maura’s already had one, and could backtrack, replay, zoom in, pause and so on and so forth. Instead of asking ‘What reality?’ Jane bit her lip momentarily. Oh. There was a sensation of a very large brick hitting her in the back of the head. “Oh-kay,” she breathed out, softly, hardly conscious she was speaking aloud.

Sometimes reality opened the door to a new version of itself, one you’d never before imagined. Now Jane had a Narnia moment where she was trying to think over every conversation similar to this before. Maura liked her. Like, liked her liked her. Like, found her attractive.

Oh,  _crap_.

Jane stared at her beer for a moment. She had to say something now. She had to decide if that changed everything or nothing at all. Glancing at Maura’s incomplete smile, there was only one feeling, and that was to make the smile reach her eyes. “Okay,” Jane repeated, this time more firmly. “We’re okay.”

Maura took a moment simply to be still, then nodded assent. If Jane said they were okay, then they were okay. Acceptance of the situation, as she now saw it, permitted her to smile honestly, albeit in a subdued way. “What do you think, then?” she offered. “Movie?”


	2. 2.05 Don’t Hate The Player

It had been a challenging week for Jane’s poor brain. For the first time in a while, she had been on a date with a pretty attractive man – whom she had later arrested for murder, but the point was, she’d been on a date – and all she thought about was the fact that Maura was wearing her clothes. It was for the best, looking back, that Maura’s house had been broken into, because, damn, Maura looked fantastic in Jane’s clothes.

 _Why don’t I ever look like that?_  wondered Jane as she unlocked the door to Maura’s house. Boobs. It was the boobs. Maura had them, and Jane didn’t. “Hey, Maura, I brought your dress back,” she called out bumping the door with her hip. Jane was hoping neither her brother or her mother were over this time, so she could just hang out with Maura and not be awkward about it. Jane had been trying her hardest not to let the information of Maura’s bisexuality, if it was that, affect their friendship. “And I brought snacks so we can watch the game.”

Movement below startled Jane, who instinctively leaped back onto the doorstep as Bass shuffled past her. “Jesus! Oh, man. Bass, buddy, you came at me out of nowhere. Slow down, or you’ll get whiplash.” The African spurred tortoise didn’t even look up to acknowledge her; she was a common enough sight now that he had absorbed her as a part of his routine, and thought nothing of her at all. She didn’t bring him his food.

As the lanky woman walked behind Bass to get a beer from the fridge and set the brown-bagged dress on the counter top, the sound of pouring water startled her yet again, and shortly the home’s owner emerged from the utility room off the kitchen, laundry started, hands now empty, and headed for the refrigerator for a bottle of water for herself. “Hi,” she greeted Jane with a cheerful smile once she’d had a nice, long sip. “Is that my dress? I have your suit back from the cleaners, too. It’s hanging in the guest room closet. What snacks? Is it those disgusting Cheesy Toes things that turn your fingers orange?”

“ _Chee_ tos,” replied Jane, emphasizing the first syllable heavily. “And no, and yes. I brought those Cape Cod chips you like, cause you said you hated getting orange on the couch. The  _one_  time,” she added, as an undervoiced mutter. Jane held the dress out with her non-beer hand, still in its baby-killing plastic sheath, to Maura, before glancing around. “Is Ma here?”

Maura peeked into the bag and, with a small noise of delight, took her favorite chips out of the bag. “No, she went shopping with Tommy. Did you bring Jo?” Not that Maura didn’t enjoy Jane’s terrier, but she was noisy and attention-needing in ways that were contrary to a quiet afternoon.

Snagging the chips back out of Maura’s hand, Jane stuck her tongue out and went to sit on the couch. “Frankie borrowed her to pick up girls in the park.” Excellent. There would be no extraneous Rizzolis this afternoon. “Have you ever watched a hockey game before? It’s just the exhibition season, but you get to see all the new guys.”

Before Maura really answered, Jane glanced back and saw what the woman was wearing as ‘lounge’ clothes. It looked like she’d raided Jane’s closet again, with a comfortable cotton top and pants. But those clothes  _never_  hugged Jane’s curves the way they did Maura’s, and Jane’s mouth spun into overdrive. “It’s the pre-game stuff, so you can cheer for anyone and not feel guilty when you’re happy if your guys lose. We’re the Bruins, y’know. Oh! Did I ever tell you about the time Frankie and I got up in the middle of the night to watch the women’s hockey in the Olympics? It was the first time they ever played, and we were over at Ma and Pop’s. Dad came in and asked who all the short guys were. Couldn’t even tell they weren’t men, it was great.” While her mouth babbled on, Jane wondered if this feeling of confusion was why Maura always babbled around her.

Listening with the happy smile she wore so often of late, Maura let the rambling continue as, without really noticing, she broke open her bag of chips and ate three or four of them. The salt-and-vinegar chips flooded her tongue with their sour tang, sharp enough to make her mouth overproduce saliva. When Jane wound down about hockey, the diminutive honey-brunette realized belatedly that comprehending the words, not just listening to that rough, husky voice, might have been a good idea.

The one word she’d caught, however, was helpful. Easily she began her own contribution to the subject of sports, subset hockey, subset Boston Bruins. “ _Ursus arctos arctos_ , the Eurasian brown bear, is a very strong animal. Normally, a round head and small, rounded features such as ears would look cute and non-threatening, but with an animal like a bruin, with its forty-two teeth and weighing nearly eight hundred pounds on occasion, it’s easier to remember how dangerous they can be. Especially because evolutionarily speaking, they’re predominantly carnivorous, despite the declining prey populations that have forced them to become mostly herbivorous in modern times.”

When Jane stared blankly at her, Maura became flustered. It wasn’t easy to remember to rein in her loquaciousness, even when she had heroically restrained her sesquipedalian impulses. “Um… Bruins are big, hungry, and threatening. An ideal totem animal for a village’s warriors. I mean, a local hockey team.” She waited for some sign of approval, or at least an indication of understanding. “No?” Silence. Maura sighed, though with more humor than disappointment. “Let me put the dress away, and then we can watch the game.”

Shaking her head, Jane tried to fight the smile from her face, and failed. “Just hang it up and come back and sit with me,” asked Jane, watching Maura retreat into the back of the house. It wasn’t until Maura vanished around the corner that Jane realized she’d been staring at Maura’s … butt. Backside? Posterior? “I’m hanging out with Maura too much,” groaned Jane, and she flicked the TV on.

As the pre-game show started, Jane’s mind wandered. The last thing she wanted was to screw up her friendship with Maura, but now that she knew it was impossible to un-know. It wasn’t that she was avoiding the information, or the truth, but she was trying to come to terms with what it  _meant_  to her before dumping her baggage on Maura. Of course, Maura being Maura, she had to be really careful not to make her friend think they were fighting. A commercial caught her attention, selling ‘NHL gear for ladies!’ “God, that’s sexist,” grumbled Jane.

“What’s sexist?” asked Maura as she returned from disposing of the dress; Jane’s suit presumably remained hanging in the guest room, waiting for Jane to either take it home or need it while visiting. “The atrocities still happening in Darfur?”

Jane’s jaw worked for a moment. “That too,” she said, firmly. “I was talking about this commercial, though, for ‘Lady’ Fanatics. They were, uh, separating guy fans from women fans by making a totally separate domain name. Anyway, isn’t Darfur inhumane? It’s sexist, but it’s way worse than that. And I don’t work sex-crimes for a reason, Maura. SVU is fun to watch on TV ’cause of Butchy McFabulous and the Ice Princess, but that’s a job that’d eat my soul right up.” She patted the cushions for Maura to sit beside her, and not miles away on the other end of the couch.

Obediently, Maura scooted closer, propping her feet up as if it were almost natural to do so. She’d given up early trying to get Jane’s feet off the coffee table; they had compromised on bare feet only, never shoes. “I agree, it’s inhumane, but it begins with a basic feeling that women are less than human and can therefore be treated as objects When the… No?” she paused, as she had earlier, and backtracked to find the subject at hand. “Right. Sports.” Another pause. “But isn’t it good that they’re providing fan gear for the feminine form? Separate domain names may be a bit silly, but it’s certainly convenient. Who wants to spend time looking through page after page of things that won’t fit properly? Separating the men’s attire from the women’s just makes sense.”

Begrudgingly, Jane agreed. “The gear is fitted better. I don’t look like a guy in my shirts.” She gestured to the (relatively) new Bruins t-shirt she was wearing. “I just think if they’re gonna have a Ladyfanatics-dot-com site, they oughta have a Dudefanatics site too. Or Babyfanatics. They even have these onesies for kids.” Jane wriggled her bare feet in the warm house. “Equal URLs for equal fans. Besides, they all show the same stuff now, you have to go Ladyfanatics, and click on ‘women’ to show just stuff for us.”

Their hands were close enough to loop fingers, if Jane had wanted to. Her fingers twitched, and Jane reached over towards Maura. Instead of taking Maura’s hand, however, she took the bag of chips and settled it on both their thighs.  _Chickenshit_ , she told herself, and winced. She really wanted to just hold Maura’s hand right now, and feel that warmth and softness over more than just her shoulder and leg.

Observant as ever, Jane’s action did not go unnoticed by Maura. “Are you okay?” she asked, clearly concerned but not attempting to take Jane’s hands. When the detective had reached over, small hope blossomed in Maura’s chest about how pleasing it would be to sit on the couch together, holding hands. While Jane’s choice of entertainment wasn’t what Maura would have selected, she did not object to hockey or any other televised sport, if it meant spending time with Jane.

Jane put her beer on a coaster and started rubbing her palms. “Yeah, yeah, it’s just going to rain.” Lie. Lie. Partial lie. It  _was_  going to rain, and her hands did hurt a little because of it. That just wasn’t quite what was actually going on in her head.

As the pregame announcements and commentaries made way for the opening of the game itself, Maura hopped back up, left the room, and came back in under a minute with a little tube in her hand. “Give,” she instructed with a smile, holding out her hand until Jane lay her own in it. A moment later, there was a small dollop of creaminess in Jane’s palm, and Maura began rubbing it in.

It was satisfying to them both, an excuse to hold hands, and the smaller woman used it with little compunction. “Your skin’s a little dry, too,” she remarked, coating the skin before beginning to massage in earnest with her thumbs and fingers. “Remind me before you go, and I’ll grab you another bottle of this. I have a couple of backup bottles. You should be using some kind of lotion every time you wash your ha-”

“AW, COME ON, you bastard!” Jane broke in, overreacting to a play on the flatscreen TV. All that contact had been a little much for her. She was thanking every god that ever existed that she wasn’t a man, or her body’s somewhat surprising reaction to Maura rubbing her hands would have been way too obvious. Clenching her hands, Jane partly undid Maura’s hard work. “Sorry, Maur,” she apologized, and let her hand lie, palm up, on Maura’s thigh again.

The outburst had startled Maura, and similar to her tortoise, she retreated into her shell. When Jane’s hand returned, she had to calm herself deliberately as she re-did the undone massage, then patted the palm and reached over. “Give me your other hand.” The shifted positions on the couch so Jane was leaning against Maura to allow the same attention paid to her far hand.

“I’m really lucky to have a friend like you,” sighed Jane, trying to keep still under Maura’s ministrations. The goalie barely stopped another easy shot and Jane growled at the TV. “Come _on_ ,” she snapped. “Ma can do better than that!” Maura couldn’t stop the giggle that slipped out and Jane grinned. “Ma’s a terrible goalie. She tried playing with me once when I was trying out for the school team, and I hit her in the face with a puck.”

Giggles calming to a warmer expression, Maura shook her head. “I’d worry, but her nose looks like it’s never been broken, so I know it turned out fine.” The game held almost none of her attention; sports weren’t much fun for her to watch. She preferred participating. However, what was immensely entertaining was watching her best friend react to televised athletic endeavors, shouting as though she were present in the audience, and as if her encouragements or blandishments could influence the game’s outcome in the slightest.

That, and she liked watching Jane in general. She knew exactly what she was doing to her friend. The flutter of faint movement in Jane’s neck alerted her to changes in heart rate; breathing rate and depth were even more obvious. Fingertips warmed, cooled, and warmed again as blood rushed hither and yon throughout the tall brunette’s body, and her facial expressions and pupil dilation were also telling.

It would have been easy, Maura reflected as her fingers stroked along Jane’s hand bones, isolating one tendon at a time to sooth the aches of tension, rerouted blood vessels, chill, tension, injuries remembered in flesh. It would have been easy to turn her ministrations into a seduction, and she knew that it could be a successful one. Maura Isles was not blind to the effects she could have on another human being, whatever their experiences or preconceptions had been up until that point. She could give Jane sensations that would make her momentarily suspend her self-image as a heterosexual, and it was possible they’d be in bed together by the end of the evening. And  _God_ , it was tempting.

But there were consequences to every action, and the consequence of this one would be awkwardness between the two of them, self-doubt for Jane, mistrust of Maura. Their friendship would shatter into slivers around them both.

Maura altered the pressure and speed of the hand massage, and very subtly the sensations became restful, untroubling.  _Friends,_  her fingers promised. “I’m lucky too,” she remarked with an open, easy smile.

Squirming slightly, Jane wanted the massage to go on forever, but had a sneaking feeling that it would end up somewhere else if it went on much longer. She squeezed Maura’s hand firmly, gently looping their fingers together. Straight girls did this all the time in high school, just holding hands as friends.  _Keep telling yourself that_ , Jane told herself. Picking her beer back up, Jane sipped and then started explaining to Maura the various positions on the hockey team. This was a forward, this a defender, and so on and so forth.

Without meaning to, Jane gently pulled Maura closer, until the doctor was leaning against her arm, shoulder to shoulder in a very comfortable, comforting way. “You really don’t care about hockey, do you?” asked Jane, at one commercial break.

“Um,” Maura stalled, eyes flicking from the screen to Jane and back, smile turning nervous, though at her angle, Jane couldn’t see it. “No,” chuckled the woman who couldn’t lie, “but I like that you’re enjoying it. You’re fun to be around when you’re excited about things.” She shifted her weight a bit, head tilting to rest on the taller shoulder until the next time Jane leaped into action to protest a play or a call, or to proclaim approval. “Which position is yours? Who’s the attacker?”

If a guy had lent on her shoulder like that (Jorge, for example), Jane might have jumped to her feet and run off. When Maura did it, it was really, really nice. “That’s really nice,” she said, absently, and was rewarded with a contented sigh of agreement. “Oh, position? The attacker is for field hockey. It’s the forward on ice hockey. Unless you take the goalie off the ice and replace him with an extra attacker, which is really dangerous, but you do it when you don’t even care a  _bit_ , why am I rambling like this?”

“Yes, why are you?” Maura wondered rhetorically, amused. “Oh! It looks like your  _Ursus arctos arctos_  have scored another touchdown!”

Jane laughed and pushed her shoulder against Maura, “Just call ‘em the Bruins, would you?” She looked over and grinned at Maura. “And it’s a goal.” Normally she’d be annoyed or frustrated with Maura’s inability to catch on with normal human things, like sports, but today, she was really comfortable. Mostly comfortable. “Hey, speaking of bears, what did you do with that big stuffed bear?”

“Why do you ask?” Maura replied without answering, lifting her head off the shoulder for a moment to look up into her friend’s face. “Did you want it?”

“Huh? No! I was just thinking about bears.” Jane shifted in her seat a little. If Maura had kept the bear, then maybe she could get one that matched, or complemented, whatever. When Maura settled back down again, Jane thought about telling her what she was really thinking. How did you start that conversation? Could she just say that she’d been thinking about what Maura said, and she didn’t mind thinking about it, but she didn’t have a reply yet? No, that would just bother Maura. If one of them was going to be bothered, let it be Jane. “I didn’t bring the shoes back,” she blurted. “The ones you cut. Did you want ‘em back?”

Against her shoulder, Maura’s cheek rounded with another smile. “No, those are… Well, I suppose I could see if they’re reparable. Sure, but there’s no hurry. I’ve replaced them with some standard pumps. Oh, and I found some that are very similar, in case you liked them.” She named a well-known chain store that carried almost-designer items for much more reasonable prices. Knowing how sensitive Jane could be when reminded of the differences in their backgrounds and income levels, she would not directly mention it. Settling again, she squeezed Jane’s hand. “They really did look nice on you. So did the dress.”

“You looked really amazing in my suit,” replied Jane, before the sentence really had a chance to process itself in her own head first.  _Whoops_. Quickly, Jane squeezed Maura’s hand back. “I don’t think I’ll get more shoes like that. I can wear my court shoes next time I dress up.” She sighed, “Of course, the next time I have a ‘date’ will be a long time.” Air quotes were not made, but Jane was pretty sure Maura would be able to hear them.

She did. “Hey, that was a real date,” she protested the unspoken negation. “Jesse Wade didn’t ask Barry Frost to Le Beau Truc, did he? He asked you.  _You_  interested him. Therefore, even if you only went because you wanted to question him about the case, it was still a date.” She took a moment to let her eyes swim back into focus for a moment, so that if Jane spoke about the game, she had a better chance of answering intelligently, then let her eyes relax again. Hockey had the potential to be exciting, she decided, if they would explain what was happening in a way that somehow differentiated it from the bar brawl it looked to be. “That’s how it works. If one party thinks it’s a date, it’s a date.”

“Seeing as Wade’s in jail now, I don’t think he’s spending a lot of time worrying about  _me_ thinking it’s a date as much as his  _cellmate_  does.” Evil, but accurate. She followed Maura’s gaze and noticed the faint crease between her eyebrows. “Do you  _want_  me to explain what’s goin’ on, Maur?” she wondered, surprised at the attention the TV was getting.

Her companion considered the offer. Maura didn’t care about the hockey game. She liked when Jane got excited about it. It was cute that she actually would find a hat of some kind, or turn a newspaper or scarf or napkin into a hat, just for the purpose of putting it on upside down; she called it a rally cap and insisted that it helped. Somehow. Maura didn’t care about the players, either, but Jane did. She could cite their game stats, list their injuries, knew at least the information that was released to the public that might have accounted for a better or worse than par performance in a given game or season. She would see a player and, even before he turned so his number was visible, recognize him by his build and stance, and point out where a slight alteration in movement indicated an injury that had not yet been reported, or an illness, or a hangover, or a divorce that weighed heavily on the player’s heart. No, Maura didn’t really care a bit about hockey, or baseball, or football, or really, almost any sport outside fencing and ballet. But Jane did.

“Yes, please.”


	3. 2.06 Rebel Without A Pause

Only Dr. Maura Isles could have worn what she wore the night before, a metallic gold and black dress beneath a gold blazer, and have it look classy. Anyone else in that attire, even in the high quality sort that Maura tended to buy, would have looked like the eighties had called and wanted their drug-hazed pimp party back. The petite chief medical examiner, and for purposes of the gallery show they had attended earlier, the daughter of the artist, made it look sophisticated, simply a more festive version of the refined attire she normally wore.

And only she would be this bouncy on the morning after a night out at a bar at which her mother unexpectedly (to her) had appeared and joined her group at their table.

She felt so good that she had arrived fifteen minutes early for their asscrack-of-dawn jog, and led them on an extra two miles just to burn off the excess energy that she attributed, at first, to a desire to work off the  _hors d’oeuvres_  from the gallery showing. By the time Jane was panting for air and seriously considering initiating a murder/suicide, Maura had calmed down just enough to remember to bring her bag inside Jane’s apartment from the car, so that she could get a shower when Jane finished hers, and they could do what Jane wanted for the rest of the day.

In fact, it was the only way Jane had acquiesced to the demand for a jog at all: they would not be attending a lecture on species differentiation in arthropods, nor would they be going to hear a chamber choir from BCU, nor would they be going into the office to waste their weekend on paperwork that could be done just as well on Monday. They would, in Jane’s insistent phrasing, be sitting their happy asses down on that couch, stuffing their faces with junk food made of chemicals and  _maybe_  an apple just to cut the taste of all the salt, and they would be watching movies or playing music or just staring off into space. She refused to admit even the possibility that an activity should have the remotest opportunity to make either of them educated, fit, or enlightened. They would also be dressed sloppy – Jane was insistent that sloppily was too fancy a form of the word – and not like they were about to strut down a Paris runway. “And no freaking meditating, either, Maura. I mean it. If I get out of this shower and find you looking  _centered_ , I will force-feed you an entire bag of Oreos and tie you down for a week so you can’t exercise.”

Maura took her seriously.

She did, however, sneak to the kitchen to quickly put together a salad, with the excuse that it would taste good, and wasn’t the point to enjoy themselves, rather than to destroy themselves? She hoped Jane would forgive her the maneuver.

Once both of them had taken their turn in the shower and gotten dressed, which had taken Maura longer because she insisted on actually drying and styling her hair, she presented herself at said couch in clean loungewear in the form of yoga pants and a stretchy aquamarine shirt. “See? I could sleep in this, and I would never wear it to work or on a date. Do I pass inspection?”

Turning to look at her friend from the kitchen (where Ms. Bossypants had made a freakin’ salad), Jane squeezed the water bottle in her hand so hard it would have shot out of her hand if it’d been the banana she’d been thinking about getting. The shirt hugged Maura in all the right places, accenting curves Jane was pretty sure she herself didn’t even have.  _She’s gorgeous._ When the water bottle started to crack, Jane’s hand snapped open by reflex, which of course let gravity take over and sent water all over Jane’s legs and the floor.

“Crap!” yelped Jane, snagging a dish towel and diving for the bottle before it could finish dumping out water all over the floor. “Yeah! You look fine!” she called out to Maura, forever grateful that the island was hiding her face for now. It gave her the time to recover her thought process. This was so not fair. “Damn it, Maura, this is your fault,” grumbled Jane as she mopped up the floor.

One caramel-brown eyebrow arched delicately, like a cat stretching awake from a nap. Maura’s head tilted.  _Interesting._

“Sorry,” apologized the curvier woman automatically, then had to ask, “but how is it my fault?”

 _Shit_ , thought Jane.  _That was my out loud voice._  Did she want to tell Maura now that, for the last few weeks, she’d been thinking about her best friend having the hots for her. That she’d been questioning her own feelings for said best friend. No, not today. “You’re so hyped up, when I’m tired. I bet I fall asleep during the movie.” Jane took the dishtowel to her dirty laundry. “I wanna watch  _The Princess Bride_.”

Thoughtfully Maura contemplated what she had catalogued in her friend’s face. It took her all of four seconds, and then, satisfied, she turned towards the DVD case to find the movie in question and pop it in. Joe Friday, walked and fed earlier, distracted her from the fact that Jane had not yet returned from the back rooms, yipping for pets and dancing a little circle around her feet. “Okay, Joe,” promised the human female to the canine. “You can sit on my lap while we watch this. I haven’t seen it before, though, so you have to be quiet, okay?”

By the time Jane returned, Maura had gotten the DVD past all the options menus and played past the warnings against piracy. The captioning was on, and all that needed to be done was to hit play and grab a handful of some horribly unhealthy snack from the bags Jane had already opened and set on the coffee table.

Just as her best friend had sat down and grabbed the remote away from her (Maura sometimes jokingly referred to it as the conch, speaking staff, or scepter, indicating the absolute authority of the person who held it at any given moment, which was almost always Jane, even in Maura’s house), she asked, “It’s my fault that you’re tired, my fault that I’m hyped up, or my fault that you broke and dropped your water bottle?”

“Yes,” replied Jane, stretching her legs out on her coffee table. “All of the above.” She fed Maura a double-stuff Oreo cookie, popping it into the medical examiner’s mouth and holding it in as she, presumably started to correct (or object too) Jane’s statement. She watched Maura chew and fume, until the sugary and fatty goodness started to melt across her tongue. “Better than 18th century beer, huh?” grinned Jane.

“Mmh hmng ghh,” Maura proclaimed as Jane forced her to chew and swallow. Only when she had done so, looking ashamed of herself, did she repeat, “I hate you. Hate you bunches.”

Laughter bubbled up and Jane pressed play. “You do not.” A second double-stuff was picked up and Jane waggled it at Maura, mockingly, before popping it into her own mouth. “Mmmmm!” she declared, and pressed play on the DVD remote. “I knew you’d like it, just like your mom loved that milkshake.”

Maura didn’t reply, save with a slightly disgruntled noise, but they both delved into the Oreos, popcorn, and other insanely terrible foods Jane had presented them with. It wasn’t as horrible as Maura made it out to be, and the movie wasn’t very long, as far as movies went. Promising not to talk during the movie, Jane found it impossible not to mouth along with the actors, as she’d long ago memorized nearly every scene. Her enactment of Vizzini’s death started Maura on laughing so hard Jane had to hit pause.

At the end of the movie, the sugar had actually started to taste bad, so Jane didn’t argue Maura’s suggestion of salad. “I’ll even let you pick the next movie,” she added, with a yawn.

Returning to Jane’s DVD case, Maura frowned over all the action movies. None of them seemed like a nice, relaxing afternoon at home. “Oh! A caper flick.” She pulled out Ocean’s Eleven and held it up for Jane’s approval. They settled back on the couch, this time Joe hopped up between them, much to Maura’s private dismay. However, less than half an hour into the movie, Joe jumped back down and ran off to gnaw on a ball, and Jane’s eyes started drifting closed.

At first, Jane was just leaning against Maura’s shoulder, in a comfortable and companionable manner, like they often did. But then her head slid down, over Maura’s arm and breast, landing in her lap, where Jane sighed happily. “That can’t be comfortable,” sighed Maura, and she scooted away to allow Jane’s long legs more room on the couch.

With a soft whimper, Jane moved along with Maura, keeping her head on Maura’s thigh, but curling her legs up until she was wedged on the couch, sound asleep.

Maura smiled down at her friend’s sleeping form. The sleeping detective looked so much younger and at peace. “You are gorgeous, my friend,” she whispered, and gently brushed Jane’s hair out of her face.


	4. 2.08 My Own Worst Enemy

Jane held Maura until long after her best friend had stopped crying. She stroked Maura’s hair as the honey-brunette haired woman hiccuped into a pathetic mewl of pain. They sat on the couch, the occasional sniffle from the doctor, for an hour, until Maura finally wore herself out. That was when Jane forced her to drink a glass of water and go take a shower.

“Thank you, Jane,” snuffled Maura before she shuffled ( _shuffled_ ) off to her bedroom. Before the shower turned on, Jane heard thumps and yanks from the bedroom and a couple angry noises.

Looking around the room, Jane didn’t see anything that screamed ‘Ian,’ which was good. The mood she was in, she’d probably rip it apart.  _If I see that guy, I’ll shoot his nuts off_ , she thought to herself, settling for ripping her mother’s labels off the cabinets and putting Maura’s kitchen back in order.

Unsurprisingly, Maura took a very long shower, which let Jane finish the kitchen and process her feelings. She  _hated_  Ian with every fiber of her being. She hated him for leaving Maura and making her cry, and she hated him for hurting her, but more than that, she hated him for sleeping with Maura. Why should he get to touch her and comfort her (something Jane was much better at, thank you), and see her smile at him in the early hours of the morning? How come he got to caress her and hold her? To feel her warm body up against his?

Because he said yes when she asked, probably. Or, even more likely, because he had the stones to ask, himself.

And that was when the second brick hit her in the back of the head.  _I’m jealous of Ian._

Oh.

All this thinking about what it meant for Maura to find Jane attractive, to want to have a threesome with her and without Giovanni (which, now that she thought about it, didn’t sound like a threesome so much as it sounded like Maura wanting to go to bed with Jane), had been slow to mature. She’d hoped that it was just a passing phase, that Jane would fall back into her easy friendship and leave it at that. But the absolute anger she felt at Ian, for loving and leaving Maura, made her want to run into that back bedroom and kiss Maura until she felt better.

Was this how people became gay? Was Jane  _gay_  now? How would she know? Was she gay for Maura? Did it even matter? She sat down on a stool and exhaled, her hands shaking. “Oh God, now what?” she asked herself, and possibly Bass, who was peeking out at her. Nervous, Jane started to rub her hands together. Bass, for his part, opened and closed his mouth. “Are you hungry, buddy?” she asked the tortoise, and went into his drawer in the fridge to find some fresh bok choy.

When Maura came back into the room, she found Jane, sitting on the floor and feeding Bass in silence. Without saying anything, she went into the laundry room to start a load of sheets. “Thank you for taking care of him, too,” she said in a voice roughened by multiple crying jags, the latest of which she had removed from her face by simply putting her head directly under the stream from her shower.

By the time Jane looked up, the smaller woman was still tying her robe, a ballet slipper pink waffle-weave, which the detective knew to be a cashmere/silk blend, and silk trim. It was the very definition of comfort, without the bulk of terry cloth; Maura had once described it as making her feel fuzzy like a kitten, or that she was being hugged. A barely visible bit of soft white fabric peeked out from beneath the crossed-over lapels of the robe, showing that she had remembered to put clothing below it as well, though that wasn’t as long. Below it were a pair of fuzzy socks, slumping at the ankles instead of neatly folded over or pulled up: her version of sloppy. All that was missing from this picture of an elegant bad breakup was a teddy bear and a mug of cocoa.

A slow, soft smile spread across Jane’s lips as she looked up at her friend. “You look a little better,” remarked Jane, slowly getting back to her feet. She went to the cabinet where Maura kept the world’s most expensive cocoa, and pulled out the box. “You got any mindless TV saved up on your DVR? Something stupid and brainless that doesn’t require you to really pay attention?” she asked as she started heating up not milk, but the cream Maura kept in the fridge.

Looking at poor, sweet, brainiac Maura, Jane felt divided into three people. There was the Jane who wanted to arrest Ian (maybe a tip-off to Interpol tomorrow was in order), the Jane who wanted to swoop Maura into her arms and kiss her till she felt better, and the one who, sensibly, was going to do everything in her power to make Maura feel loved.  _She doesn’t need a romantic moment right now_ , Jane pointed out to herself.  _She just needs to know I care about her_.

Despite her suspiciously reddened nose and eyes, making her look like she had both a head cold and a hangover, Maura nodded as she headed right for the couch, folding herself up into one corner of it, knees to chest, arms holding her own torso together, not quite cowering. “Documentary on African tribal religions’ effects on the practice of Christianity,” she offered unthinkingly.

 _That_  was her brain candy? Brainiac, indeed.

“I also have a beautiful art film in Japanese. I think I can get it to display English subtitles, if that’s easier.”

“If that’s easier?  _If?_ “

“And I have Netflix On Demand.”

Stirring the cocoa, Jane sighed a little and hoped the noise was lost in her cooking. Africa sounded too much like Ian for Jane’s tastes. “Got anything by Kurosawa?” she asked, hoping just a little bit to impress Maura with her knowledge. “ _Seven Samurai_ ‘s not really a relaxing movie, though, is it?”

The mention of Akira Kurosawa did, indeed, surprise Maura, and she turned around on the couch to look at Jane with wide eyes. When the detective went on to name not only the well known  _Seven Samurai_  and its American version,  _The Magnificent Seven_ , but the classic  _Yojimbo_ , she narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to impress me, Jane Rizzoli?”

“Impress? Maybe distract,” grinned Jane. “I’d rather watch the art film if you can get subtitles working, otherwise you’ll have to translate for me.” She let her eyes drift to Maura’s liquor cabinet, but decided against it. Alcohol was a depressant. She was spending  _way_ too much time here. Jane joined Maura on the couch with two mugs of cocoa, and pulled her shoes off before propping her socked feet on the coffee table.

Accepting her mug, Maura cradled it in her hands without drinking; the warmth and the scent seemed enough for the nonce. “I can, but my voice might get in the way of your appreciation of the cadences of the actors’ interpretations,” she said dully, automatically. Too softly. “Pick anything you like from whatever you see on the shelf, if you want. I don’t really…” She broke off with a gentle sigh. “I should try to care, shouldn’t I? That’s how I usually get out from under Ian. I mean, the way I feel after he leaves. Something happens, something in which I’m invested, and my emotions have somewhere else to go. Maybe I should spend the weekend volunteering for P.U.K.E. There’s a fundraiser.”

Her insistence on pronouncing each individual letter precisely, rather than using the unfortunate acronym, didn’t really help; Jane still heard the synonym for regurgitation.

Wrinkling her nose, Jane snatched up the DVR remote and flipped through the saved shows. “My last bad break up, I think I watched my copy of Buckner until the VCR broke, and ate so much Chunky Monkey I was about to go back to being Roly Poly Rizzoli- Really, Maur? You DVR’d  _The View_?”

To her credit, Maura flushed. “They had a NASA scientist on to talk about the arsenic based lifeform found in-” She stopped. “You’re teasing me.”

“I’m tryin’ to make you smile,” admitted Jane, scooting a little closer to Maura. “God, all your recordings are science.” She flipped over to Netflix on Demand and scrolled through Maura’s available movies. “Aha!  _The Muppet Movie_!”

“Okay,” Maura acquiesced, though her expression indicated clearly that she had no idea what a  _Muppet Movie_  might be.

“It’s a musical. You’ll love it,” Jane said firmly, and pressed play.

95 minutes of movie play later, plus about twenty minutes of pauses here and there for cocoa re-warmings and explanations of dialogue using slang or cultural references unfamiliar to the girl who’d spent her preteen and teen years in France, Maura had laughed. Not loudly or enthusiastically, but there had been enough chuckling that Jane felt reasonably certain that sudden bursts of tears might have come to an end, or at least a middle.

“Better?” she asked, patting Maura’s knee, and received a nodded response.

“Thank you.” This time it was the robed woman who stood to take their mugs to the sink for washing, able now to at least carry out the mechanical actions of resuming life. “I think it will be a few days before I really feel like myself again, but that’s better than weeks. It will be harder this time, though. And easier.”

Leaning her head back on the couch, Jane watched Maura’s form as she washed the mugs. “Yeah, I kinda get it,” Jane admitted. “Do you, um, do you  _want_ to talk about it?” Really, Jane didn’t. She wanted to go find Ian and hit him with her car a couple times. Jealousy was an ugly, ugly feeling.

“No,” Maura replied listlessly, then proceeded to negate her own statement. “It’s just that this time, he really is gone. I mean,  _gone_  gone. He won’t be back. Ian will be sourcing his supplies elsewhere.”

That said it all, didn’t it? The Doctor Without Borders – or, apparently, respect for borders and border-crossing laws – would be getting his medical supplies through other channels. But saying that he wouldn’t be back at all meant that he wouldn’t be coming back for Maura, either. He’d been using her the whole time, picking up medicines and catching a willing and reliable booty call from someone who would never say no.

Jane couldn’t help it, “God, he’s such a dick.” The second she said it, Jane was mortified and would have kicked herself if that was possible. “I mean, that is, I’d come back for you.” Jane wasn’t entirely sure that was much better, and as Maura’s face crumpled again, she was up and off the couch like a shot. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I keep putting my foot in my mouth, both of ‘em. We can, uh, watch another movie?”

“ _Jane_ ,” Maura moaned into the taller woman’s shoulder, not in reproach but in plea. No tears fell, but her eyes squinched so tightly shut that for a moment the fabric of Jane’s shirt was pinched between folds of skin at the outer corner of one eye, much like the fuller grip her hands took of the bunched cloth at the small of her back.

It took her a long moment to resume customary control, to step away as if to say she could stand just fine on her own. “I’m sorry,” she husked throatily, once again sounding as though she’d been coughing for days. “I know this can’t be easy for you. Not after I hid all of it from you, and now I expect you to just be here for me. I don’t…” Shame lanced through her expression, causing her to wince at it herself. “I feel like I’m using you just like Ian…,” she paused, not quite wanting to articulate it. “Just like Ian used me. Don’t let me do that, Jane.”

Unbidden, part of Jane’s brain sang out,  _Oh let me be used like Ian_! Jane kicked that part of her brain. “Maura, come on. You’ve been there for me with all the stupid Hoyt crap. And when I shot myself. I’d rather be here for you.” She slowly led Maura back to the couch, where they could sit and sniffle in a little more comfort. “We’re, y’know, partners like that. Equals.” If the situations had been reversed, Jane knew she’d want to be in no one’s arms (platonically!) but Maura’s. She took hold of Maura’s hands and tried to be as sincere as possible. “You’re my best friend, Maura. Anything you want, I’ll get it.”

Sitting as delicately as possible, as if sore or bruised all over and needing to be handled with care, Maura again pulled into herself, though this time she sat nearer the center of the couch than the corner where she had previously coiled like a hermit crab retreating into a shell. “You really would, wouldn’t you?” she asked, though with a tone of solidity, a statement with only the phrasing to suggest it was a question. “I wish you could get me answers. I don’t understand how love can be one-sided, and I  _really_  don’t understand how it can  _always_  be one-sided. If I’m not being shunted to one side so someone else can do things that are more important, I’m the one who just doesn’t have anything to give to someone who needs it from me. I’m out of step.”

With a half-sheepish shrug, Jane didn’t argue the first question. Or non-question, as it was. “I don’t really think I’m someone to hand out relationship advice, Maura,” she groaned, leaning against the couch. “Maybe we’re just always dating the wrong people, or for the wrong reasons. Look at Joe Grant? Talk about one-sided.” Jane shuddered. “Or Jorge.” Along that thought train, Jane caught a pattern in herself. “God, I’m always dating guys who don’t see me as  _me_ , but … a thing. An ideal of Jane Rizzoli, and then they don’t like it when I  _am_  me and run off after the bad guy.”

The distraction Jane had been trying to give her all morning finally presented itself. Maura latched onto the ‘wrong thing’, the thing with which she took exception, the thing that caught her attention as being just lightly ‘off’. “Really? That’s odd. I would think that you being you would be the most attractive thing about you, even above your physical appearance. Your commitment to duty and justice, I mean, not just your bravery, because that usually comes with troubling, irritating bursts of foolhardiness.”

Jane’s face rearranged itself into a soft smile for a moment. “Irritating bursts of foolhardiness? Really? You think that’s my problem? I think I’m just the wrong girl for their orbital spatulas. Been hit in the head too many times by a spatula, maybe,” she added as an afterthought. Letting go of Maura’s hands, Jane unfolded herself, stretching her long body out to gain some more comfort. She hadn’t realized how tense this whole mess was making her.

In spite of her still-raw feelings, Maura chuckled quietly. “No, I don’t think your foolhardiness is the problem. I think the problem is that it’s just a poor match. They aren’t really… This will sound horrible, so please forgive the way it will come across, but they’re not up to… They aren’t… Boy, this really does sound bad, any way I try to phrase it. Fine. They’re not good enough for you. You need and deserve someone who’s able to embrace all of who you are. Joe Grant wanted you to be the hot girl. Jorge wanted you to be the strong girl. Casey wants you to be available when he comes back to town, just like Ian wants – Oh, God, no, that’s not what I meant to say!” she broke off, zooming from subdued to distressed in nothing flat. “No, no, no. I’m sure it’s entirely different. That’s not at all… Just please, forget I said that.”

Both of Jane’s eyebrows jumped in surprise. Six months ago, Maura saying something like that would have hurt. Either she was way too used to Maura’s awkward turn of phrases, or the truth was too much to ignore. “I didn’t sleep with Casey, Maura. I mean, I kinda wanted to, but I think I would have been using him like… I would have been the Ian.” Rueful, Jane rubbed her palms together. “This is what happens when you tell me I should have sex to release my endor-kings.” The word was endorphins, and Jane knew it, but she kept as straight a face as she possibly could.

“Endorphins,” Maura corrected automatically, “but that’s a step up from en _dolphins_ , which you said last time we discussed it. And you probably should, you know, or at least come to yoga more often with me. Exercise is as good as sexual activity for the release of endorphins, oxytocin, and several other brain-generated chemicals and physical processes that it sets off. When the…”

Recognizing with almost as much amusement as usual the level of glassiness in Jane’s eyes as she delved into science she couldn’t wait to share, the fairer woman broke off with a laugh that was almost light, almost her usual sound. “You don’t even care a little bit, do you?” However, she did not await an answer. “That wasn’t even the point I was going to address. What I was going to say was that you’re not like Ian. I can acknowledge that the thing that attracts me to him,” the unspoken  _and you_  hovered just beneath her words as hazel eyes lifted briefly to scan Jane’s face for clues as to approaching unease, “is his commitment to what he sees as his calling. But everything else will always be secondary to that, for him. He’s noble and admirable. He cares about societal injustices, the abuse of power, and the bleeding crowd, but a needing friend? A lover? For him, it’s the masses who need him and the good that he can do for the most people. Individuals don’t matter. I don’t matter. Not in the overall scheme of things.”

Bass, wandering past the couch on one of his semi-regular circuits, paused to negotiate how to get around Jane’s feet without getting caught in the legs of the coffee table. Maura reached down, tapped Jane’s leg, and at the same time lifted and scooted the coffee table to give him an easier pathway. “That’s what I realized as he was packing his supplies to go. Ian will always come around if I give him medical supplies, and while he’s here he’ll always want me. When he leaves again, I’m torn up for days or weeks, until I find something to expend my energy on and become fine again. He doesn’t have that feeling. He’s just happy to get back to his real life. I’m not his real life. If I were, he’d stay here with me… or, just once, ask me to go back with him.”

Wisely, Jane let Maura run through her pages of text before trying to cut in. Remarkably at ease, she pointed out, “He just doesn’t care about  _you_.” The next sentence died on the back of her tongue.  _I care about you_ , thought Jane, and she watched Bass make his circle around the couch. “I kind of get it,” she admitted, not really wanting to. “It’s easier to lo- to have feelings for the masses than for one person.” She waved a hand out at the world. “Being a cop, I don’t think I could do or be anything else but this. Ma hates it, not cause I get shot at, but because I’m always putting myself out there, feeling for people, and having them die.”

Wasn’t that depressing. “But if I didn’t do this, if I wasn’t there for people, I don’t think I could be  _me_. God, you get that. Not even Joe got that, which is stupid,  _he’s_  a damned cop.” Jane shook her head angrily. “He’s a better paper-pusher than a cop. He never  _felt_  it right.”

“But you’re here,” Maura interrupted, softly. That this was unlike Ian went unspoken. “Thank you.” She reached over and put one hand on Jane’s knee.

The return smile from her Italian friend was easy and heartwarming. “Always, Maura.”


	5. 2.09 Gone Daddy Gone

“Tommy’s not the only Rizzoli with a beautiful mind,” said Jane quietly as she walked away from the chessboard and its owner, the swagger back in her step. Just for good measure, she gave Maura’s backside a little backhanded pop on her way to the couch, where she promptly turned on the game, sprawled limbs claiming far more than her fair share of the seating. Tommy may have unwittingly thrown her off her game over the past couple of days, but by God, she was back.

Still looking a little shell-shocked, the shorter woman stood right where she was, processing. And smiling. How Jane did this to her, she’d never understand, but somehow every time her best friend got the better of her, or really if she surprised her in any way, Maura felt her balance being restored as, just a few months ago, only yoga could do. Being unsettled in almost any other situation was, well, unsettling. If Jane did it, contentment reigned.

All around her, noise continued unabated. Jane had already begun shouting at the big game on the television (why all games were big, Maura could never quite understand), Angela was making free with her kitchen and producing things that smelled wonderful, and Tommy, shown up once again by his big sister, was making noises about his new job, ostensibly to his mother, in order to work his way past embarrassment at being bested at his best flirting technique.

After a moment of woolgathering, she started moving again, feeling no more energetic than in her more stunned state, but dimly aware that if she didn’t do so, someone would be sure to notice; and being surrounded by Rizzolis, particularly Rizzoli women, they would surely hit upon the reason for Maura’s astonishment. The problem, reflected the methodically minded woman as her body performed the motion of table clearing, was that she knew exactly what was happening within herself. Oh, she could catalogue it as a laundry list of psychological jargon, or describe her physical symptoms in medical detail that would probably trip them up for a few seconds, but she knew what was really taking place: Jane had turned her on.

Everything Maura had felt for Tommy, she also felt for Jane, and in greater measure. Everything she liked about Tommy, she had liked first, and more, in Jane. The only advantage Tommy had was his gender – and that was not so much an advantage in Maura’s mind, but in his. Tommy could feel reasonably confident that if he approached a woman, reeking of charm and a little bit of the bad boy, she would most likely be at least a little appreciative, and would feel just fine acknowledging the fact.

Jane, if she felt attraction at all, would probably not act on it, Maura decided. They might live in one of the more liberal-minded states in the union, but given the teachings of the Catholic church, in which she held at least nominal membership, and the resistance she would almost assuredly feel to the idea of becoming a walking stereotype (oh, how original, a lesbian cop), on top of which was the added worry of making a mess of the best friendship she… Here, Maura took a mental pause. That was  _her_  worry. She shouldn’t project it onto Jane. Still, given all that Jane would be working against even if she was attracted to Maura, which the caramel-haired woman would not call anything close to a sure conclusion, it was highly unlikely that her best friend would probably not be willing to put herself at emotional risk by making it known. She seemed, in fact, to be very concerned that anyone might even consider it a possibility.

Now, that was something. Hazel-green eyes focused sharply, though not on anything that was physically before them. Instead, while packing away food into lunch-sized containers that she neither saw nor cared to see, Maura now gazed into the past, replaying with DVR precision a collection of moments in which Jane had made a point to assert her non-attraction to Maura and other women. Had she spotted Maura’s clumsy attempts to ascertain a mental dossier on Jane’s dating history and tastes, and tried to draw a line so that she, Maura, would not overstep and embarrass them both? Was she just overly sensitive to such things, having brought herself up in a male-dominated profession wherein women, when present at all, tended to be assumed to be “pseudo-men” in some way, often in terms of their sexuality? Was it possible she was attracted to women in general, but not to Maura, and didn’t want her socially awkward best friend to be nervous of her intentions? Was it just a matter of “methinks the lady doth protest too much?”

Something was missing. There was information Maura didn’t possess; she could not form a proper hypothesis, let alone devise a manner of testing it.

No, that wasn’t it. Something else was missing. Maura snapped abruptly out of her daze and looked around.

Her kitchen was clean.

Pots sparkled in the draining rack. The dishwasher hummed merrily away, providing no more than the faintest whisper to indicate that it was working. Citrus scent ghosted through the air, evident but fading rapidly as the moisture from freshly wiped counters evaporated. The food, she very vaguely remembered, was packed away for lunches over the coming few days. The dish towel had even been changed out for a fresh one. The chess pieces had been reset for a future game, but other than that, the kitchen table was clear, and so was the dining table.

Other than Jane, hollering at the lazy-assedness of some hulking brute carrying a ball away from, or perhaps towards, other hulking brutes, there was no one else here.

“Jane,” Maura asked, somewhat bemused, when the game paused for a commercial for some kind of beer, “when did Tommy and Angela leave?”

As she fished her MGD 64 out of the fridge, Jane didn’t even have to look around to notice her family had left. “At the quarter. Tommy went to the bar to watch with Frankie, and Ma went to call Carla Talucci.” There was no real reason for Jane to provide Carla’s last name every time she mentioned the woman, whom Maura had never met. Jane popped the cap off her beer, her favorite when she wanted to drink for taste and not to get drunk, and expertly spun the cap between her thumb and forefinger, flinging it into the trash can. “Three points,” she announced to Maura, smugly. “Nothing but net.”

“A good throw. Did you know that basketball was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith of Ontario? He was-”

“Nuh-uh,” Jane broke in immediately, quick to claim him for her home state. “He was from Massachusetts.”

“In fact, he was not,” insisted Maura. “He was born in Ontario, and only moved to Massachusetts in adulthood. He was Canadian-American. However, he did live here when he invented the game, so I suppose-”

Again, Jane broke in, still smug from her athletic feat of getting a beer bottle cap into a waste can, or perhaps still from having bested her brother and checkmated her genius best friend on Tommy’s behalf. “He only got  _awesome_  when he moved  _here_. We get him.”

Realizing she wasn’t going to win this one, no matter how much logic she employed, Maura let it go and returned to an earlier point, fetching a glass of water on her way to the couch with Jane. “Why would Tommy go to the bar to watch the game when it’s on right here, on a better screen, and he’s not surrounded by… as many people shouting and covering up the commentary?”

Perhaps absently, Jane threw her arm along the back of the sofa. If she was a man, the motion would have obvious connotations.  _This is my arm. You need to snuggle up against me._ Being Jane, however, the signals were muddled. “Girls, probably. He wasn’t going to make time with the ones here.” Jane glanced over at the new front door. “You doing okay?”

Fortunately, or not, Maura knew how to take a hint, and did so with alacrity and effulgence, though there was tension in her as well, in case she had mistaken the intent. “I’m fine,” she assured her friend. “I told you, Jane, it was just some chess and a little harmless flirtation. I like to keep my hand in.”

There was absolutely no stiffening, or tension, in Jane’s body as Maura settled in. If anything, the lanky detective relaxed further. Except for her eyes, which rolled in amused frustration. “I meant about the door. Doyle.” Jane sighed and wedged the beer between her knees to grab the remote and turn the volume down to something Maura considered reasonable. “If you want a real chess game, just let me know.”

Maura’s mind worked quickly, even at the worst of times. Between the time the last word had fully left Jane’s lips and the time her own parted in order to enable her to inhale in preparation for speech, her mind went on an extended vacation. She had thought chess was a sexy game even before having seen the original  _Thomas Crowne Affair_  with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen. It was a game of strategy, a war in miniature, played primarily in the mind rather than the body; but the mind was the most erotic of erogenous zones, and taking part in a chess game exposed someone’s style of thinking like few other activities could. One could easily see in an opponent’s hesitation or boldness, the way they attacked, defended, retreated, parried, tricked, ambushed, a certain correlation between the game and seduction. By the time one of the two players was mated – and wasn’t that a telling word for how someone lost the game? all but shouting “well, now you’re fucked” – a connection had been forged. The style of each player’s play was what differentiated a friendly struggle, a violent and unpleasant conquest, or a masterful elevation of both players to their best levels of performance.

Long practiced at both arts, Maura had approached the game with Tommy only when he had noticed her putting away the game she’d set out the night before, having thoroughly asserted and maintained her dominance over an old-fashioned pen pal in the Ukraine. She’d wanted a review of their moves on a physical board, not the online one they’d been using for two days. As Tommy entered, bearing an armful of dishes his mother had insisted he take back in from the guest house where she and her youngest son were living, Maura had been dancing at her laptop keyboard as she clicked her move, then leaped up from the chair to dance around, crowing. “Suck it, Vasiliy! You just got owned by a non-professional! Who’s your daddy now?”

She really had to remove  _Mr. & Mrs. Smith_ from her Netflix list.

Be that as it might, Tommy had immediately seen an in and suggested a game, wherein he had surprised her. Not that he was a genius, but he was very smart, and played with good technique. He even knew the names of some of the gambits he pulled out of his innate wit. Maura was impressed, and said so; and hence had made a single flirtatious remark. It hadn’t meant anything; she enjoyed chess, enjoyed flirting, and the combination was irresistible. To a point. Attracted though she might be to Tommy, dating a best friend’s brother, she had been informed in icy tones during her third year in college, was Not Done. Using one for sex, while not dating, was even more out of bounds. There was no possibility of either with Tommy, so there was no reason to go further. It truly was harmless.

But now Jane wanted to play chess with her. That wasn’t harmless at all. That was downright treacherous, especially if she played the way she’d been (slightly) tempted to play with Tommy until the social rules had reasserted themselves in her mind.

Realizing that the silence had gone just about a second too long – had it really only been three or four heartbeats? – Maura cleared her throat. “Maybe later. Who’s winning the game?”

Jane’s lips curved in a curious expression, one that implied she had a question but wasn’t going to ask. “They are.” Her annoyance with this confession was obvious. “We’re the ones in green,” Jane added as an afterthought, which produced a not-quite-audible sigh of relieved comprehension in the woman nestled up under her arm. Whatever Jane’s feelings were about Tommy and Maura, she was keeping them well concealed today. Almost imperceptibly, Jane’s body oozed against Maura’s, so their entire sides were up against each other. “Hey, did you eat all the dinner?” To punctuate her thought process, Jane’s stomach made an attention demanding noise.

“No,” replied the smaller woman, immediately standing and ridding herself of the uncomfortably comfortable sensation of being cuddled up in Jane’s arms. “Here, it should even still be warm. Ish. Warmish. I’ll get it; just relax and watch your game.”

Only when the food was reheated and she was setting it down on the breakfast nook, at the seat with the best view of the television, did she realize what a picture of domesticity she had just presented.  _I’m playing into every 1940s stereotype of gender-defined roles. Except that I’m doing this for a woman. And I’m not even getting to sleep with her._  “Jane. Dinner’s warm.”

As Maura got up, Jane’s head followed not the big game, but her best friend. “I still can’t eat at the couch, huh?” she joked, getting up and sliding into a seat at the breakfast nook. Oddly, it was not the seat with the best view of the TV, but the one opposite where Maura was standing.

“No, you can’t,” came the very firm reply. “Remember the diced ahi ceviche? I had to send that cushion to the dry cleaners.”

Not rising to the ahi bait (pun intended), Jane smiled. “You’re the best friend ever, Maur, you know that?” Jane pulled the place mat over to her chosen seat and took a bite. “An’ thish ish great!” she all but groaned with her mouth full.

Maura chuckled as she sat at the seat she had designated originally for Jane. “It should be. Technically I made it, but your mother showed me how. She said it was her grandmother’s recipe, not your Nonna Rizzoli’s. It’s surprisingly subtle, for a dish that’s been made by the same recipe for at least a hundred years. I almost didn’t even notice the tarragon.” The secret ingredient, the one Angela had added while Maura’s back was turned.

“Ma says that if you make it with love, it tastes better. I think it’s the cumin.” She winked at Maura. “You did a good job. I should make you dinner sometime. I make a mean caprese salad, and tortellini pasticco alla panna.” The Italian rolled off Jane’s tongue with practiced ease. “I like it best with homemade tomato sauce, though, and you have to do that a day before for it to taste right.” Jane glanced around Maura’s kitchen, as if contemplating cooking it there.

Mouthing an intrigued  _ooh_ , Maura decided, “We can do that any time you want. Just tell me what ingredients to buy. Maybe in return I can show you some things I learned from a chef I used to date.”

“Deal,” agreed Jane, without hesitation. Then she did hesitate and look oddly cagey. “Hey, listen. My birthday’s coming up, and I was thinking…” Jane trailed off, “You know, never mind.” She flushed slightly and went back to eating dinner.

“No, don’t never mind. What?” Maura leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on the table, body language indicating she was engaged and eager. “Do you know what you want?”

The blush stayed on Jane’s cheeks. “No,” she said quickly. Then, inconsistently, she added, “Yes.” With a noise of frustration, she dropped her fork on the plate and leaned back. “I know what I  _don’t_  want, but I don’t think even you can stop Hurricane Angela from throwing me a surprise party.” Subconsciously, Jane pushed her hands together, in psychosomatic pain probably. “I don’t want a party. I just want a nice quiet meal. Like this.” Almost shyly, she looked at Maura.

_Like them._

Before she could call it back, Maura’s hand left the half-folded spot on the opposite elbow and slid over the table towards Jane’s, stopping perhaps a fingerwidth short of that destination. “I’ll try,” she promised quietly, her smile gone soft. “But if I can’t keep a big, noisy party from happening, I’ll still make sure that the next day, or the day after, we’ll find something quiet to do.”

Too much. She had gone past best friend territory again. Pulling her hand away and resting her back against the chair again she added, “But you’re still getting a real present. Angela has been lamenting that you never tell anyone what you want, not since you were nine years old and didn’t like what you got. But you know I don’t take hints very well, so you might as well tell me what you want, or you may wind up with the adult equivalent of your ninth birthday gift.”

That one, as Jane had once told her, had been a pink canopy bed.


	6. 2.10 Remember Me

Even though Maura had texted Jane to warn her about the surprise party (and Jane could have kissed her for that), she  _had_  been surprised when no one was at the Dirty Robber. Jane hadn’t scored the highest grade in her group for the detective’s exam for nothing (99%, suck it Frankie), though, and she had to work hard to act surprised at the real party at her apartment.

It had been a long, painful, emotional day, and she could have kissed Maura again for both the present and her ability to clear a room. As soon as Jane had started to droop, Maura asked, “Is the medication making you tired?” With that, Korsak chivied everyone out, except for Maura, and Jane collapsed on her couch with a squeak.

“Where the hell did she get all this?” groaned Jane, pulling a balloon out from behind a pillow.

“A party store, I presume.” Maura was busy in the kitchen, putting away the cake and leftover food.

It was too much energy. “God, Maura, you’re giving me a headache, please sit down.” She heard her fridge close and, moments later, Maura took her usual seat on the couch, beside Jane. Their eyes met for a moment, an awkward moment in Jane’s mind, and she started to look away when Maura took hold of her chin. “Hey,” complained Jane, but she didn’t try to break away.

The doctor frowned, “You didn’t take the pain killers!”

“Aw, come on, you know I hate them,” Jane whined, turning her head away. “It doesn’t hurt that much, anyway.”

Clearly Maura didn’t believe her, and said so. “Uh, yes, it does hurt that much,” she retorted, her own pain, exhaustion, and tension effectively cutting her ability to restrain her  _I am surrounded by non-geniuses_  awareness, and the expression thereof, to just about nil. “I know because you were tasered just like I was, cut just like I was, and on top of feeling exactly the way I feel from those, which isn’t good, you have a light concussion.”

“Maura, all I want to do is sit down for a while, okay?” She didn’t even want a beer. The last few roller coaster days were hitting her, and Jane’s hands started to tremble.

Doctor Death, who felt as though she’d come close to becoming her own patient along with her dearest friend just a few hours ago, sighed and took the shaking hand between hers. She wasn’t much better off, but with one another’s grasp, both became that little bit steadier. “Can you sit in the bathtub instead of in the chair? You’ll feel better, a little, once you’re clean and warm.”

Somehow, through the mess of the fight with Hoyt and his acolyte, Jane had managed to only sob for a few seconds on Korsak’s shoulder before pulling herself together. At first, she’d barely been able to look at Maura, knowing she was safe now, but feeling horribly guilty for being the reason Maura’d nearly been killed. And worse. “I killed him,” she rasped, the shock finally settling in.

“You killed him,” Maura repeated, voice almost as strained as Jane’s, almost as hoarse, after the day they’d had and the effort of sounding pleasant for the duration, however short, of a surprise party. “You saved us both, Jane. I put myself in that situation – you couldn’t have stopped me from going with you, and you couldn’t have stopped him from trying to hurt us, but you saved both of us.”

She squatted so that, even looking down as she kept trying not to do, Jane would still have to see her face, understand her earnestness. Five years into friendship, and a few months into real closeness, Maura was finally learning to read her best friend. “Stop thinking what you’re thinking, Jane. This isn’t your fault. I know you’re blaming yourself right now, but don’t. You. Saved. Us."

“Now,” she concluded, standing again and giving a gentle tug, “come on. I think it’s time for both of us to get a bath, or a shower, and some sleep.”

Jane did not stand for a moment. She looked up at Maura, her expression a little glassy, her face a little pale. “I don’t want to lie down,” Jane muttered, hunching her shoulders up and pulling herself in. Finally she stood up and looked down at Maura. With a hand that was none too steady, Jane pushed aside Maura’s hair to look at the raw, red line on her neck. Her fingers hovered over, but never touched, the mark. “I couldn’t- I wouldn’t let him kill you, Maura.”

Shoving aside all the weird, conflicting feelings she had for Maura, and telling the part of her who wanted to kiss and make it better to shut the hell up, right now, Jane wrapped her arms around Maura and squeezed her, terrified she was about to wake up from a new set of nightmares and find her best friend gone for ever. “I was so scared he was gonna hurt you,” she muttered into the shoulder of Maura’s jacket before she lost that grip and started crying.

“He didn’t,” came the quiet but firm answer as Jane’s grip on her demeanor snapped. As if she could hold the taller woman together with her own arms, Maura hung on for both their sakes, absorbing as many tears as Jane cared to cry. She would not shush her, would not try to make her stop.

In fact, mere seconds had passed, if that, before Jane’s pain became Maura’s, too, and she joined in the crying jag. They sobbed, keened, mourned the loss of the latest little bit of security that had been stolen from them. It was cold comfort indeed that it had happened to them together: pain shared was not, in this case, pain halved. Instead, the acid experience bled freely from, and over, both.

As Maura held her and cried, Jane’s strangled words of ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ were lost in the tears. All that came out were sad whimpers of pain and terror. If she never had to let go of Maura, that would still be too soon. A life without her crazy, weird, genius friend wouldn’t be a life Jane wanted.  _God, I swear, please don’t let anything happen to Maura_ , she prayed silently.  _I can’t lose her! She’s everything!_

When at last neither one had any more crying in them, couldn’t set one another off yet again, Maura’s hold on Jane lessened just enough to let them both breath a little more deeply. Her arms were sore from the extended effort of it, of clinging as if Jane was still in mortal danger and she herself would have to witness the torture and death of her friend while being able to do absolutely nothing to stop it. But she did let go, and felt marginally better for it. She had reached the end of her rope, and was incapable of feeling more fear, more sadness. It was time to feel relief, or nothing.

“Jane,” Maura tried, but little sound came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Jane. You don’t have to lie down, but we both need to shower. I don’t think I can spend another minute with the imprint of those awful men’s hands on me, and I don’t want to think of them on you, either. Please. For me. We need to shower.”

Resisting the urge to wipe her nose off on Maura’s shoulder, Jane let go and used her own sleeve instead. With a deep, shaky, breath, she nodded. “I grabbed my spare shirt out of my desk,” Jane stated, obviously. “You take the first shower. Give you hair time to dry.” Shuffling towards her bathroom, Jane led Maura down the short hallway. “I’ll find you something to wear.”

“Thank you.” The state of Maura’s mind and emotions could be accurately judged by all the fucks she did not give about the fact that Jane had wiped her nose on her sleeve. She spared a moment to realize that she had mentally used the phrase  _Look at all the fucks I give,_  then realized that she truly didn’t give a fuck how many fucks she hadn’t given. As Jane’s spocked eyebrow questioned her tilted head, Maura shrugged.

“Don’t give a fuck, do you?” Jane interpreted correctly.

 _She gets me._  “Not even half,” agreed Maura dully, then drooped into the bathroom to begin her shower.

The water was on and the curtain had been pushed aside, or so attested the little  _schning_  of metal rings on metal bar, by the time it hit her: she was alone. “Jane?” she called, suddenly scared again. She’d thought all her fear was used up for the night. “Jane?”

“Yeah, what?” came Jane’s voice from just outside the door, sounding almost as panicked as her own. “Did you slip? Is your neck bleeding again?”

“N-no.” Maura said with a little whine she couldn’t quite control. “I just…” And then she couldn’t continue. She’d never known how to ask what she wanted from her parents, and all of a sudden she could not think of an acceptable way to ask it of Jane, either.

Having both been there and done that with Hoyt before (twice before, three times if you counted the other apprentice), Jane leaned on the door frame. “I’m right here,” she said calmly. This kind of terror was something she understood. Still, she was too tired to walk Maura around the mental journey of understanding why you felt this way. “Don’t want to be alone?” she asked, closing her eyes for a moment.

“No.” The voice from the bathroom was more certain, but still whiny. “I mean, yes. Yes, you’re right. No, I don’t. I sound like a person of average intelligence, Jane, would you just come in?”

Jane’s hand froze on the doorknob. Holy God, Maura was going to be  _naked_  in there. Oh hell, today was not the day to screw around with that. “Uh. Do you want me to come in now, or after you get in the shower?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t sound as forced as she felt it did.

“Who cares? Oh, fine.” The shower curtain rings  _schninged_  again. “I’m in.” Perhaps at another moment it would have mattered to her, but just at the moment, she was all out of fucks to give. Her mind, Maura reflected, really needed to build back its defenses; but failing that, it really needed to build back its filter.

Peeking in, Jane made sure Maura was, safely, behind the curtain.  _Thank you, God, Jesus and Santa for translucent – and not transparent – shower curtains._  She scooted in and sat on the toilet. “I put your clothes on the bed. Did you see who took Joe, or do I need to worry about where she is right now…”

Rather than washing, Maura’s faint, peach-colored outline was simply standing under the steady, steaming stream, head bowed, as the water scalded away, bit by bit, the feelings of all that had been done to her today, all that she had seen and heard being done. As Jane was about to reiterate her question, the outline answered in a single word. “Korsak.” Good. Joe Friday would be fed, walked, and would get to know a couple dozen other dogs by the time she was returned to Jane’s apartment the next day or the day after. As if her own voice had startled her, Maura started moving, presumably washing, though the towel hanging from the waist-high bar obscured at least half of the fuzzy details behind the plastic sheet. “Sorry,” she remarked, sounding apologetic. “I don’t mean to use up all your hot water.”

As it happened, Jane was not looking at Maura. Nor was she looking at the mirror. She was very carefully looking at the base of her sink and the dust there. Torn between thinking she needed to mop in here, and realizing this was every man’s fantasy, Jane almost missed Maura’s statement. “It’s okay, the cold shower’ll probably do me good,” she answered, without thinking of the implications.

“Actually, that’s a bad idea. You could go into shock from cold, in the state we’re both in.” However, she did reach down to adjust the spray, noting with some disappointment, “But if it’s too hot, it could cause the bleeding to restart, so I should probably make this lukewarm anyway. Hey, since you’re next in, do you want to just hop in so you don’t have to restart it and find the right temperature?”

Speaking of shock, Jane’s heart nearly stopped. “Uh. I.” She stopped and squeezed her eyes. “Just leave it on. I’m .. if you’re done, I’m gonna.” Jane’s wit failed her. Gonna what? You don’t have a single idea, do you, Rizzoli? “Do you mind if I just sit here with my eyes closed till you’re in a towel?” she finally managed, her voice almost pitiful.

“Sure,” said the woman who’d attended boarding school and had no modesty left whatsoever. She was the same way in the gym showers after yoga and other workouts. It said something about the power of Jane’s Catholic/puritanical upbringing and mindset that she had, despite all their shared yoga classes, workouts, and now this, never actually seen her best friend undressed.

Blinded by her own eyelids, Jane could hear the rustling of terrycloth over wet skin, accompanied by a quiet “Sorry” as a forearm or shoulder or something brushed against her in the small room; a hairbrush through freshly washed hair, smelling of Jane’s shampoo; the terrycloth again, finally being wrapped. “Okay,” Maura belatedly said as she realized that the tall woman was still sitting there with her eyes closed. “Do you want me to stay, or to leave?”

_Stay! A thousand times stay! Stay and be beautiful and make me forget every terrible moment about this horrible day. Stay, with your warm smile, or the cute way you wrinkle your nose when I say something you don’t understand! Or how you make me smile when you say something I can’t begin to understand. Stay and laugh, or dance, or simply be everything that is wonderful and beautiful about you, Maura._

And Jane said none of that. Instead, she sighed, regretfully, “Stay… outside the door? Please?”

Maura nodded. “I’ll talk to you the whole time so you’ll know I’m here.”

True to her word, she didn’t even wait for Jane to get into the shower. She stood directly outside and started talking about something to do with… As near as Jane could make out, it was either about carnivorous plants, or some new type of plastic. The words were too large, the shower too loud, and her brain too overextended. The words themselves didn’t matter as much as the person who was saying it. Just hearing Maura’s voice made her feel more relaxed and more comfortable.

By the time the water lost its warmth, Jane felt human again. “Hey, Maur, would you hand me my jammies?” She paused a moment, “And, uh, clean underwear?” It wasn’t like Maura didn’t know the ins and outs of Jane’s entire apartment anyway.

“Um,” Maura replied, stemming the flow of… now it sounded more like the science was related to the Mentos and Diet Coke fountain phenomenon… but after a moment of silence, agreed. “Okay. I’ll have to go away for a moment.” That moment was quiet, and ended with a gentle knuckle-rap to the bathroom door. “I have your things.”

Instead of reaching for the clothes, Jane poked her head out. “Thanks- Jesus, Maura, you’re supposed to get dressed!” Something about the literal behavior of a certain Dr. Maura Isles made Jane smile so much, it hurt. She shook her head and took the clothes. “Go get dressed, I’ll be right there.” Jane did not close the door all the way, leaving it open a couple inches as she pulled on clean clothes, chuckling once or twice under her breath.

Maura hesitated, not wanting to be further from her source of comfort than necessary, but she did make herself go. Rustling from the cracked door advertised her adherence to the request for clothing, even though a steady stream of conversation – no, more like recitation – accompanied it, drowning out at least some of the ambient sounds of becoming attired. This time it was apparently synonyms for various items of clothing.

Taking less time than Maura to change, Jane found herself frozen in place as soon as she’d stepped out of the bathroom, watching Maura pull on a shirt that was loose on Jane and snug on her. Cowardly, the woman who’d killed Charles Hoyt silently dodged back into the bathroom to look at her face in the mirror. “Oh my  _God_ ,” she hissed at herself. “Pull yourself together, Rizzoli!” Opening the medicine cabinet, she finally gave in to the aches and pains and popped painkillers, though not the ones the hospital had given her.

By the time Jane had summoned the courage to enter her own bedroom, Maura was covered. Jane’s “Boston Homicide” softball jersey was crying for mercy on her, and the yoga pants weren’t much better off, but at least she was covered. “I feel better,” she noted. “Physically, I mean. I don’t feel… I don’t feel quite as dirty.”

“I know what you mean,” agreed Jane, sitting on the end of her bed. She looked up at Maura and smiled, tired. “I took some painkillers,” she promised and then asked. “So, doc, how come I feel so tired now? It’s like I’m the rubber-band that just snapped back.”

“Because your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system was activated,” came Maura’s helpful response as she turned around, feeling the bed move slightly under Jane’s weight, “followed by steroid hormones and cortisol, catecholamines, particularly dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. In turn, those trigger the excitation of the amygdala, and… and you don’t really give a…”

Already her head was shaking, knowing what Jane’s response would be, and it caused her to chuckle even as she translated into smaller words. “You were terrified for your life. Your brain told your body that it was in mortal danger, and you became acutely stressed. It took immense energy away from your reserves in order to support the fight-or-flight response, and then more energy to sustain you through the Internal Affairs questioning, doctor’s examination, driving home, and getting through your party. Now that you’re not running on adrenaline,” Maura went on as she scooted nearer, not entirely conscious of her own action but needing to be nearer to another human who wasn’t threatening her, “your body and brain are relaxing, and they might be taking it a little too far, too fast. You’re probably also experiencing a dramatic lowering of concentration, inhibition, and rational thought.”

_Well, that was certainly true._

“It’s normal, you know,” Maura said, voice becoming quieter as she alluded to what she had not fully described, but that was on her mind as well as Jane’s just the same. “When you fear for your life, it’s part of the recovery and relaxation process to feel an urge to… reassert life.” She leaned closer for a moment, placing her hand atop Jane’s in a comforting gesture that was quickly, albeit smoothly, taken back a second later. “To reassure yourself that you’re still alive. The… things you’re feeling right now, they’re normal. This is normal. And it’s okay to feel it. It’s also okay to  _just_  feel it; you don’t have to do what it’s telling you to do.”

You weren’t best friends with a woman like Maura Isles for years without learning how to interpret her.  _Oh my god, Maura’s telling me she’s horny… and she knows I’m horny._  Jane couldn’t think of what she might possibly say to that deluge of data, and sat, stunned, as Maura got up. “What? No, Maura. I wasn’t scared for my life.”

That caught Maura’s full attention, and she half turned back towards Jane. “I wasn’t scared for myself, Maur, I was scared for you.” She swallowed, but Jane didn’t let her eyes leave Maura’s. “When he had that scalpel at your neck, all I could think was that I was gonna lose you and I couldn’t let that happen.” She knew she was speaking too quietly, but honesty like this was quiet. Loud honesty was for Rizzoli shouting matches and the brotherhood of police. Maura was soft and quiet and Jane didn’t want to raise her voice. “That’s why I went all Hulk smash on the guy. I- I didn’t want to let anything, anyone, do this to you.” And she held her hands up to Maura, praying she understood the meaning.

There were times she could barely stand to look at her best friend. This was one of those times, yet Maura did look, not wanting to seem as though she wasn’t receptive. The last thing anyone, but especially Jane, needed at a time like this was to feel that Maura didn’t understand the depth of sharing that was taking place. She could barely speak, though she opened her mouth to try, knowing that she was more bare than she’d been in the shower. “I know,” she said in what amounted to little more than a whisper. “I know what you did was for me. I froze, and you fought, and it was for the same reason. And now…”

Quickly, Maura’s lips pressed together as her breath caught. Now she could look away; had to, in fact. “You may not have been afraid for your life, but you were still feeling terror, and so was I. And now, I feel what a person feels when they’ve survived that, and even if you don’t, I… I have to… take some time. Okay? And then I’ll be fine. And if you don’t need the time, just read something. Please. Because what I feel right now is just a, a, an instinctive response. It’s not real, or at least it’s not trustworthy. I have to settle down, or I’ll just toss and turn and annoy you all night. So I’m just going to meditate for a few minutes, okay?” With that, the smaller woman simply lay down, stretched out straight and flat, and closed her eyes.

Jane stared unthinking for a moment, then flopped back to lie in a more haphazard position. How the hell was she supposed to look at that? Maura had all but told her that she was turned on, that she knew Jane was, and then that it had nothing to do with either of them, per se. It was nothing more than the fact that they’d been through trauma and now their bodies were trying to feel alive by sending out impulses, synapses firing left, right, and center.

But that wasn’t what Jane was feeling. At least, that wasn’t why she was feeling it. Life or death stuff wasn’t new to her. In fact, it was old hat. She was used to that rush, and having it end with hour upon hour of depositions at the station, then going home alone to terror-filled dreams relieved only by dull, boring ones that were just as bad.

For Jane, all her emotions had been as clear as the necessary course of action. Protect Maura. She’d done that. Get out of the situation. She’d done that, too. Get through the post-event questioning. Done, with the ease of familiarity. The party had just been more of the same, an obligation to get through. But now…

Previous traumas had been met by the reaction Maura had mentioned, however roundabout. The reaction was less after the second time it had happened, and had been getting smaller and smaller with each time her life had been endangered. However, never before had the danger so closely involved her best friend. And now that it had, the fear had come back full force, and so had the… reaction. Jane pulled the pillow out from under herself and put it over her face.

She could still hear her best friend, enforcing a strict rhythm and style of breathing, just as they’d learned in yoga class. This wasn’t her first time feeling terrorized, but it was the most intense situation she’d ever been in, Jane was fairly sure. What was going on over there in Maura’s head? Was she only thinking about controlling inhalation and exhalation, or was she engaged in one of those creative visualizations she had mentioned liking so much? And if she was, what sort of visualization was it? Maura had once told her that in order for her to let go of an idea, she had to think through it to its logical conclusion; only when she’d done so was she able to truly release the thought process and pattern.

Was she thinking about what one normally thought about when aroused? Was meditation just a way to avoid… doing… things… that Jane should not think about in any sort of context relating to, or in the presence of, her best friend?

She couldn’t breathe right anymore.

Taking the pillow off her face, Jane hugged it like a teddy bear. Was there really any harm to letting her imagination run a little? To think about what Maura’s lips might feel against hers, or how her body felt pressed up against Jane’s? It wasn’t a large leap of imagination, since the number of times Jane had hugged Maura, pretending to be her lesbian lover for example, had given her surprising depth of knowledge about exactly how Maura felt when snugged right there. A little sheepish and a little guilty, a slow, dreamy smile crept across Jane’s face as she closed her eyes and thought about all that. To the outside world, she would probably just looked like she was meditating, same as Maura.

Twenty excruciating, exquisite minutes later came a very tentative, very quiet voice. “Are you okay now?”

Jane opened her eyes, not startled, just aware. “Always,” she said honestly, the dreamy smile on her face as Maura, too, opened her eyes, rolling towards Jane with companionable ease. Jane kept the pillow to her chest. She didn’t, couldn’t ask if Maura felt better, but she could ask this. “Would you get the overhead light?” The nightstand light was on, and that should suffice.

“Yes,” Maura replied, standing and walking to the doorway, but she didn’t flip the switch right away. Maybe it was her current state of fatigue combined with her state of repletion, satiety, but the smile on Jane’s face gave her an answering expression, smaller but just as serene. Her hand remained on the switch, unmoving, for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. It was a privilege, seeing Jane smiling without the usual tightness around the eyes, the line in the forehead that spoke of annoyance, the irritation in the slant of shoulders. She soaked up all she could without being asked about it, then turned off the light and slid into bed beside her best friend.

With the nightstand light at its lowest setting, the room was just dark enough to sleep, and just light enough for two terrified women. In the grey light, Jane reached over and found Maura’s hand, taking it in her own. Exhaustion was winning and Jane exhaled a long, drawn out breath, and let go of what was left of her energy. “I have something I want to tell you,” she told Maura. “But I can’t … Not tonight. Too tired.”

Maura’s fingers closed loosely around those of the long, lanky woman beside her. Jane’s hands were warm, textured roughly in the palm thanks to scar tissue, calloused, and utterly reassuring to hold, the more she needed to do so. “Okay,” she agreed, and after a long, silent moment, her eyes closed.


	7. 2.12 He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

“Listen,” Jane said as Maura gripped the corkscrew and twisted it down into the cork, distracting the off-duty detective with the clear outline of muscle in her upper arm, strength and capability in her hand. “I don’t want to stand in the way of a great romance, okay?”

Maura glanced away from the bottle, though she kept working at the cork. “What do you mean?” She knew already, but it would buy her some time. She’d been confused, and her feelings had been very close to the surface for quite some time now. Tommy’s abortive advance had caught her at just the right, or wrong, moment. The only thing good about that situation was that she’d had the presence of mind to realize in time the consequences of what, at the moment, seemed like it would have been at least a partial relief of the tension she’d been carrying.

She still felt embarrassed about the incident. Near-incident. Whatever.

“You and Tommy,” Jane was saying. “I mean, clearly, opposites attract.”

“It is an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction.” At least science was always there to give her something to say when nothing she was thinking or feeling would do. Unfortunately, sometimes even the scientific answer was the wrong one.

Jane’s jaw dropped. “Okay, why do you gotta go straight to breeding, all right? With my _brother_?” Distaste, even disgust, was clear in her angular, handsome face, so like that of her brothers and father, but sharper. More distilled, extraneous curves done away with. Classic feminine beauty was classic for a reason, Maura reflected as she watched her friend’s reaction, but Jane’s type of beauty was on a whole different level. Androgynous was probably the correct word, but it didn’t seem strong enough. Jane’s beauty both combined the two gender extremes and improved them, then negated and transcended them.

Briefly, Maura wished she had become an artist, like her mother. The moment they’d met, she would have devoted the rest of her career to drawing, then painting, and finally sculpting these features, in an effort to capture them, claim them, understand them, and to get to touch them forever with brush, pencil, chisel, and – mostly – hands. Especially distracting was idea of manipulating clay, moulding it to mimic that strong jawline and neck, the cleft of chin and the broad, intelligent brow, intimately knowing the facial musculature and the way the bones rested beneath the soft skin that…

She was staring.

No, scrutinizing. She was scrutinizing.

Quickly, the honey-haired woman sought to cover up the gaffe of introspective silence. “Look, I like Tommy. A lot. But I love you.” Those words fell into the air and floated around them, without preamble or apology, just long enough for Jane to hear them as what they were: an unqualified declaration that, even if she could have her pick of either of the two, she would still pick Jane over her brother. Then, not for her own sake but for Jane’s, she shielded the full glare of that illumination. “And I hate it when you hate me, so I don’t want to do anything to compromise our friendship.”

Jane was just quiet enough to indicate to Maura’s watchful eyes that she had heard the underlying message as she replied, playing it slightly safer, “Good, ’cause I hate it when I have to hate you.”

Message received, Maura smiled warmly. They were going to be okay. She handed over one of the two wine glasses she had poured, sharing without compunction the gift that had cost Tommy a month’s rent and prevented him from having electricity in his new apartment. “Sip it slowly,” she counseled, having tasted another bottle from the same vineyard in the past. Given neither to superlatives nor hyperbole, she nevertheless had declared it sheer perfection, and was looking forward to seeing Jane’s reaction to a taste like the one she remembered.

The expected response failed to materialize. Jane’s face went from pleasantly expectant to politely pained. Her assessment of the wine as made of garlic and feet stung Maura to the core; was it possible that her best friend had so poor a palate?

But her own taste confirmed that Jane was correct. She winced and set the glass away from herself, making an immediate mental plan to get the travel toothbrush from her purse and rid herself of the aftertaste at first opportunity. Perhaps while Jane was eating her sandwich… not that she would do so now. In pouring the wine back into the bottle, insisting that the wine shop  _would too_  take it back, a little dribbled onto the sandwich, ruining it.

As the two laughed over the ruination of the expensive bottle of wine, and Maura dug through the drawer of take-out menus to find something else they could have for dinner, Jane worked in a few digs at Tommy’s ability to choose things of quality. “Some smart shopper,” Jane chuckled for the second time, washing her plate and the skillet. “You know, Tommy was always like that. he always wanted to do the cool, classy thing, but he’s really bad at it. He wanted to take a girl to prom, so he bought her flowers. They were plastic. He thought it would be classier to get her something that would last than something that would only be gorgeous for a couple of days. Good thought, bad execution. The earrings he got Ma for her birthday one year turned her ears this awful, blackish green. He’d buy clothes for school that looked good in the store and for one or two washes, and then they’d just fall apart. He never did recognize quality when he saw it.”

“Oh, really?” One caramel brown eyebrow arched as if Maura had taken insult. Before she could ruin a perfectly good moment with a smile, she turned away to call the Greek restaurant and place an order for some foods she and Jane both enjoyed.

Jane missed the amusement, the humor in the mocking offense-taking, and rushed to defend her position. “Not you! God, not you, I swear that’s not what I meant. I didn’t-”

“Hello, Pegasus?” Maura held up one finger towards Jane, a mute request to hold all protestations. “I’d like to place an order to be delivered. The address is…”

Jane fumed in silence until the moment her best friend finished the call and her iPhone screen went black. “Seriously, Maur’, I didn’t mean you. Tommy may not know quality or appreciate fine things like he should, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t sometimes find one by accident. Even a broken clock’s right twice a day, right? He just doesn’t know what to do with a good thing when he’s got one. Not that he’s got you. He doesn’t. Because you shut him down. Not that you were rude about it, you were probably so nice he almost didn’t get it, but he’d  _better_ get it, because…”

“Shh.”

The same finger that had shushed Jane earlier now lifted again, this time right to her lips, and pressed them closed. It was probably a good thing, given that Jane had no idea where to go after what she’d already said, but she would have by-God been willing to keep babbling forever if it could make Maura know she didn’t mean to insult her.

“Shh. I understand.” Maura smiled up at Jane, her expression gone soft. “You already called me one of the finer things in life.”

Pressing her lips tightly together, Jane did her best to salvage her scattered wits. Finally she managed, “So you’re staying for dinner?” She still wanted, needed, to talk to Maura about all this, but every time she got just a little closer to being able to say ‘And I love you!’ something stupid like Tommy happened. Or in her case, Casey, who was supposed to come back next week for their stupid high school reunion. Did she actually like him, or did she like him because she was supposed to, and her mother didn’t?

Years ago, Jane had connected her attraction to people as being in direct but opposite proportion to the amount Angela disliked them.  _I am hanging out with Maura too much,_ thought Jane.  _I’m starting to think like her!_  Unwilling, and truthfully unable, to sort out her conflicting feelings for Casey, Jane stepped back and retreated into her kitchen. “I’ve got some cheaper wine, beer. Water.” She tried not to babble, but she had a feeling she was losing that one.

“Water’s fine.” Maura thought quickly. Had she misinterpreted what she’d seen in Jane’s face? Possibly; it did happen rather a lot. Jane was one of the few people she couldn’t read instantly. Edging away from the counter, she attempted to school her features into something like nonchalance, knowing all the while that nonchalance was what it was called when everyone could tell it wasn’t real. A glance towards the doorway out of the kitchen provided her with a decent excuse to leave the room altogether until her face was as bland and pleasant as ever. “You know, I think I’m just going to brush my teeth. That wine left a distinctly unpleasant taste in my mouth.”

“Your toothbrush is in the holder,” Jane called after Maura, thankful for a moment’s respite, and poured two glasses of water. Maura’s was ice-free, just the way she liked it, and Jane sighed and ate her grilled cheese before the rest of dinner came. “God, why am I making this so hard on myself?” she muttered, trusting the sound of Maura’s vibrating toothbrush would cover up anything.

Oh, and there was that again. Vibrating. Vibrators. Masturbation. Being turned on by her best friend. Danger, Will Robinson! Groaning, Jane draped her arms across her kitchen counter and let her forehead rest on the cool surface. Maybe if she just bashed her head in a few more times she could make sense of all this. The sandwich dangled limply from one hand as she tried to think of how you told your best friend that you thought some of those ‘elements’ were nice too. “How come she can just say she loves me,” she growled into the counter, “And I can’t even pull off a Han Solo?”

In the bathroom, Maura wasn’t faring much better, though at least she had something to do that would keep her thoughts a little more organized. Careful brushing of each tooth in little circles, just as her dentist recommended, plus her tongue and the roof of her mouth, occupied just enough of her attention, and forced her to think as methodically as her brushing hand moved.

Thus far she knew that:

* They had fought, but they had made up.

* Things had been going well.

* She and Jane were starting to get back into their usual rhythm of bantering.

* She’d said she loved Jane.

* Jane had backed away.

What happened between those last two things? That, Maura didn’t know. She wanted to know. She wanted to be able to guess, was actually fairly desperate to come up with a guess, but she couldn’t do it for the life of her. Maybe she’d just misunderstood Jane’s signals. It wasn’t like that was new.

Ten minutes later, Maura realized that she had brushed her teeth a good three or four times now. If there had been any wine aftertaste, it was surely replaced now with mint. Great, that would go splendidly (in the “not at all” way) with the Greek food she’d ordered. Sighing, she spat, rinsed, hung up her toothbrush in the holder right near Jane’s, and squared her shoulders. Time to go out there with her brave face on and be a friend. Just a friend.

The sight that greeted her was both pleasant and unpleasant, given the angle of view from the bathroom to the countertop and the fact that Jane was still bent over the latter, faceplanted in her own emotional baggage. An unobstructed view of Jane’s rear end and legs nearly sent Maura back into the bathroom, into a similar pose, to work through it. Knowing that Jane was in distress – why else hold such a posture? – resolved her to simply go out and be the friend she had decided to be. “Hey,” she greeted softly, alerting Jane to her return, laying a hand on her back to soothe whatever ailed her. “It’s okay. It’s over. Tommy’s safe, the robbers are caught, and you and I are okay.”

Somehow, Jane managed to both stiffen and relax simultaneously. “It’s not that,” she grimaced and turned her head so her cheek was smushed against the counter. “You’re really amazingly brave. I envy you,” Jane sighed, looking up at Maura fondly. “I mean, you can just say what you mean, or think, or whatever, and you don’t have all this stupid crap shoved in your head. I mean, I’m such a stupid drama llama!”

“Why would you be a South American camelid?” Maura wanted to know, caught up short by what she saw as an abrupt subject change; but before Jane could answer, she decided to let it go. “Never mind. Come here.” Both hands extended in an offer of holding, she backed towards the sofa so that if Jane wanted to take her hands, she’d have to follow and sit with her. “So. That’s what you see? You see me being brave by blurting things out? You see me as free of all the things that keep most people from saying what’s on their minds? I agree. I’m free of a filter, most of the time. Especially when I’m nervous, or scared, or agitated in any way. Everything just comes tumbling out, and although I really wish I could be, I’m not particularly in control of that.”

As she took her seat and curled one foot beneath her other thigh, the small, ultra-feminine, often awkward woman sighed. “Which is, I suppose, longhand for what I really mean to say.”

While Jane did not take Maura’s hands, she did follow her to the couch, draping her form over the back, and still holding the sandwich, as if it was a shield to protect her from her own idiocy. “Which is?”

“Being unable to lie doesn’t make it any easier to tell the truth.”

That was fair, Jane allowed silently, tilting her head just a little. “Everyone does that, you know. The babble when we’re nervous, or scared. I sure do,” she sighed. The urge to babble right here and now was huge in Jane’s mind. “Uh. Like I’m trying not to do right now.” There, a partial admission was better than none. Jane shoved the room temperature grilled cheese into her mouth and mumbled, “Ah ovv oo oo.”

For once, Maura took her sweet time replying. She gazed affectionately at her dearest friend, visibly moved despite the cheddary flavor of the statement and the way Jane had used the plate and sandwich as buckler and shield. One hand twitched as if to reach for her, then settled back onto her lap, a little bird making an experimental takeoff before joining its fellows on the telephone wire.

“Y’know,” Jane remarked, bite only half chewed and swallowed, covering her mouth partially with the wrist of the hand holding the grilled cheese sandwich, “it’s kind of creepy, you staring at me while I’m trying to eat.”

Despite herself, Maura chuckled. “Scrutinizing, not staring.” She did not stop looking, nor did her smile lessen at all. “To examine in detail with careful or critical attention. Critical meaning with skillful judgment, not in the sense of an inclination to find fault.”

Jane sighed and finished her pre-dinner-dinner. “It’s still a little creepy, you  _scrutinizing_  me while I eat.” Licking the butter off her fingers, and completely unaware of the effect that might have on Maura, Jane thought about the conversation. “Why  _are_  you oggling me?”

Zeroed in on the buttery, cheesy, crumby fingers as Jane cleaned them, Maura didn’t at first answer, though she kept smiling in serene approval. Silence alerted her to the fact that she might want to pay attention to something else, however, and she consulted the DVR-like mental playback for a clue as to where to start. “Hm? Oh. Because I thought it was nice, what you mumbled.”

Presented with proof (or at least the likely implication) that Maura had heard and parsed her bread and cheese swaddled confession, Jane blushed. Like a teen-aged girl, she was turning red because the cute boy in the second row checked ‘yes’ and passed the note back. Jane wanted to swing her foot and kick dirt clods. “I meant it,” she said softly.

“That’s what made it nice.”

Without blushing, Maura nevertheless managed to look demure, glancing down at her hands, folded nicely together on her lap in a way that would have made her old governess proud. “I’m not going to tease you about it,” she said as Jane’s silence and embarrassment threatened the fragile peace they had reestablished for their friendship. “Tempting though it is.”

Jane pushed her hair away from her face. “Thanks, cause we’ve already gone over the part where I’m a chicken.” She started to play with the ends of a lock of hair, before remembering that was an indication of sexual frustration.  _Not wrong, there,_  she thought, almost grimly. Tugging the lock once, she let go. “I still have something to tell you, and I can’t … I’m having trouble getting started.” Jane took a deep breath and the goddamned doorbell rung. “Oh come _on_!” she shouted in frustration.

Like Pavlov’s dogs, Maura was on her feet before the doorbell stopped resonating, though she paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Take your time, Jane. I’ve been here for five years. I’m not going away.” The long look she gave spoke of both hope and promise, and remained steady for long enough to underscore her sincerity before she turned away and allowed the overly muscled delivery ‘boy’ (nearly thirty, but his father owned the restaurant, so what could one do?) to take her money and hand her the brown paper bag with the white receipt stapled to the fold-over.

“I’m already stupid. I told Casey I’d go with him to our high school reunion,” she complained, locking her front door while Maura started to put their food on plates. “Maura, I told you, eating out of the containers makes it more fun.” She reached round Maura, lightly taking her wrist from behind. Both women froze at the touch and stared at the back of Jane’s hand, on Maura’s wrist. Jane’s fingers extended but her palm stayed on Maura’s arm well past the reasonable length of time for a purely platonic, heterosexual best friend.

Silence.

Comfortable, and then not, Maura eventually addressed what she understood. “Casey’s coming?” If that was the case, then what she had begun to assume – and this, she reminded herself, was exactly why she never, ever should do that – was clearly incorrect. Therefore, she became comfortable again. Not precisely happy, but at least she knew where she stood: exactly where she always had. Now she knew what to do. “In that case, I’ll help you get ready for him. For  _it_. For the  _reunion_. When is it?”

Somehow Jane was pretty sure that the wrong idea was out there. “It? The reunion? Oh, uh, next Friday.” A moment passed and Jane’s hand let go of Maura’s wrist. How the hell did they end up here? Oh, right, a Rizzoli foot in a Rizzoli mouth. Right. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t even want to go.” She studied – scrutinized – Maura’s reaction to this. Maybe she’d misunderstood Maura’s actions the other night.  _Maybe it wasn’t me, maybe I was just … available._  So, wait? Maura didn’t want to date  _Jane_? This was starting to make Jane’s head hurt.

“You don’t want…? Well, of course you do. Don’t you?” Maura dithered, and chose the food as a reasonable distraction which would look natural, necessary, and was right there in front of her. “You’ll get to see all your old friends and catch up a little, put old things to rest, and show them how amazing you turned out to be. May I have your olives? I’ll give you one of my cherry tomatoes and some of my cheese.”

It was un-American to wish that Casey might get hit by shrapnel right now, wasn’t it? Yeah, it was. And it wouldn’t work, because he might tell some nurse that his sweet girlfriend (gag!) was in Boston, and then Casey’s mom would tell Jane’s mom, and then everyone would chip in to get Jane a ticket to where ever he was holed up in some army hospital in the back beyond of Afghanistan or whatever, and then she’d have to marry the idiot. Oh god, maybe  _she_  could get shot again? No, Casey would just come here, and then Maura would be hurt. That wouldn’t do at all.

Turned out Maura wasn’t the only person who could get lost in her head and extend a silence past its usefulness. “Cherries? Oh, olives! Yeah, whatever you want.” She held out her salad for Maura to pick whatever she wanted off. “How amazing I am? You have no idea how vile high school is, do you?”

As she busied herself with trading one vegetable for another, Maura congratulated herself that Jane hadn’t noticed the disappointment in her face before she had managed to mask it. “High school isn’t vile! I loved school. We didn’t actually have a reunion, but I’ve often thought it would be nice if we did. I’d love to see what everyone’s done with their lives, and show them that I didn’t turn into a serial wife, or a serial k- um… Never mind, but anyway, I’m sure it would be fun to catch up. And you, you went to school with guys.” Her tone suggested that there was no need to even explain why  _that_  was awesome.

“Oh, like Giovanni? And Rory.” Jane launched into a detailed explanation as to how terrible it was to go to school with boys. “Oh, and then there were the mean girls who just  _hated_  me! Emily was one of ‘em, and she was my best friend until eighth grade. She dumped me.” Which led, naturally, into a dinner conversation about Jane’s high school days, including the Roly Poly Rizzoli nickname, and a brief, verbal, blessing that Joe  _Grant_  wasn’t coming. “If he was here, I’d have to shoot someone,” Jane finished, pinching her face up like she’d bitten a lemon.

Knowing chuckles followed Maura all the way to the couch, where she’d become accustomed to eating dinners with Jane when at her apartment. “Yes, but you actually knew a few males of roughly your own age, and didn’t have to take two buses and hitchhike or walk three more miles to get to a school that had them. Admit it, there were advantages. And,” she added with an extra, and disturbing, little sparkle to her eye, “you took advantage of those advantages.”

This time Jane sat with Maura on the couch, balancing her food on top of her water glass. “Wow, that’s some serious dedication. Puts making out behind the bleachers to shame.” She gave Maura a teasing smile. It was returned, but not fully. Maura covered the slight discrepancy by taking a bite of salad, remarking on the freshness of the flavor.

“I guess it would have,” she agreed when she’d come up with something to say. “Being four years younger than anyone else in my class, I didn’t have any classmates who were also my age-mates. By the time I was old enough to go out and do those things, the other fourteen year olds were freshmen. I was a senior, and had no classes in common with them, so we didn’t really interact. But I heard all about it,” her demeanor rallied, “and it sounded like a  _lot_  of fun. And you, you got to do all that with people your own age, and didn’t even have to leave school grounds to meet people. So come on, spill.”

Jane chewed on her salad and studied Maura’s face. Fourteen year old Maura was hiking miles to find a boy, or not. “Oh, come on, it’s not that interesting. Frankie already told you about the time I wore that dress all week.” She grimaced, “Besides, what am I gonna wear? No, no, I really don’t want to go. I’m just going as a … favor to Casey.”

Chewing and swallowing another bite or two, Maura decided, “You’ll wear that sexy little black number that you bought with Angela. It’s classic, yet modern, and you look devastating in it. After all, you need to look good, whether you’re going for yourself or just as arm jewelry for Casey. I’ll come over before the reunion and help you with your hair and makeup, too. It’ll be fun. And you never know…”

The idea of Maura coming over to help her do her hair, and pick out clothes, and maybe Jane would just have to wander around in a bra and panties. Two can play at that scientific deduction game, Dr. Smartypants. Jane put her most aggrieved puppy dog expression on. “Fine, okay. You can help. And maybe I’ll get lucky.”

Just probably not the way Maura was thinking.

Maura smiled hugely, mind filled with but one thought:  _I’m going to get Jane ready and sexy for Casey. Kill me now. I’ll perform my own autopsy._


	8. 2.13 Seventeen Ain’t So Sweet

Jane’s plan was failing. There she had been, in her sexiest bra and panties set (which was off the rack, but at least she went and got that fitting Maura was always nagging her about), with her hoodie, oops, open just a bit too much. And what did Maura do about it? Maura tried to help her get dressed to seduce Casey.  _Maybe it’s the socks,_  thought Jane, looking down at her white crew socks. Socks were never sexy.

When Maura tossed the blandest matched set Jane had into discards, Jane perked up and said they were the ones she wanted to wear. Hah! That might make Maura think Jane wasn’t looking at Casey for sex. Not that you needed to wear sexy-time stuff to get a guy’s attention. Show up and make any comment, and they had a Pavlovian response.

Pavlovian. She must have learned that one from Maura.

The gods of every religion smiled down on her when Casey had to bail. He was deployed. Again. And now Jane didn’t have to go to the reunion or waste time with Casey. She hadn’t banked on Maura  _wanting_  to go, nor had she expected Giovanni to show up and ask if they were still together. Jane was pretty sure the next ‘class update’ newsletter would be congratulating Mrs. Detective Rizzoli and Dr. Isles. She’d tried to salvage the night by ‘accidentally’ copping a feel, but between a murder and Korsak’s ex showing up, they hadn’t managed any sexy time. Damn it.

Of course, Maura looked damn sexy in that cute little tennis outfit the next day. Longer legs and all, Jane let Maura get to the ball first. “You beat me,” Jane laughed at her best friend. “You get to serve.”

“I get to serve anyway,” Maura replied with a smug chuckle. “You missed the ball, so it’s my serve. Fifteen-love.” The next point went to her as well, but Jane quickly caught up, having figured out that Maura didn’t just want to hit the ball, but to play a proper game. Once that was established, Rizzoli competitiveness engaged, and she evened the score, then moved ahead by one.

The two of them traded advantage several times before agreeing, on their ninth tie, that they probably ought to just agree that they were evenly matched – Maura thanks to lessons and training, Jane because she was used to hitting against a wall rather than an opponent whose moves would telegraph the location that the ball would next come back on her side of a net. “Well, I said I’d beat you and I didn’t,” Maura concluded as the two packed up their racquets and balls, “so after we get cleaned up, lunch is on me. And because you didn’t get to consummate with Casey, I’ll even let you pick the restaurant, and I won’t point out how unhealthy whatever you order will be for you.”

Dismissively, Jane waved one hand as she guzzled water from the fountain. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, “I’d rather hang out with you anyway.” Dropping casual truth bombs like that on Maura was always fun, just to watch her face as Dr. Smartypants tried to figure out what Jane meant. “There’s a great spucky place around the corner. Don’t drink the beer, though, it’s crap. We could grab a couple and sit outside with  _diet_  soda.” Jane made sure to roll her shoulders at the work ‘diet’ in faux-girlie simpering. As if she actually cared.

“Oh, really,” Maura tossed away just as casually as they headed for her car, “you’d rather hang out with me than go to bed with the one that got away?” Not expecting an answer, she started the car and pulled out of the lot. “Okay, spuckies it is, then, and no beer. But showers first. We reek. My place? I know you’ve got something to wear over there.”

Jane flipped her pony tail with a head toss. “You at least would have laughed at my naked day at BPD joke,” she pointed out, causing Maura to lift a brow and mouth,  _naked day?_  “Come on, lets eat right there at the spucky joint before we go, or the spucky will be all cold. A cold spucky, no one wants that!” Warming to her topic, Jane added, “And I don’t care if I smell, I’ll go in and make the orders. We can sit out in the park and people watch, too.”

Though it went against her nature, Maura agreed, and soon they were seated out at the worn picnic tables outside the Lucky Spucky, fresh hot food cradled in both sets of hands. To herself, but aloud, the ever so proper woman rationalized, “Now that you mention it, it’s probably better to eat before showering, when the food is messy like this. I don’t mind getting it on something wash-and-wear when it inevitably – Mmhm.” The words broke off as, predictably, a drop of the sandwich’s contents escaped and landed right in the middle of her tennis togs’ chestal area. She sighed. “Just like that. Hand me a napkin, please.”

Eyes locked on the red splotch on Maura’s front, Jane acted instinctively. “I got it.” She dipped a napkin in her water and carefully mopped up the mess. “This is why you’re not supposed to talk and eat,” she teased her friend. “Spuckies are totally eat, then hose yourself down, food.” Satisfied that Maura was clean enough, Jane took a big bite out of her own, steaming hot lunch. “Oh, gaaaaaaaaaaaaaahd, thaz good,” she groaned, in full Bostonian appreciation for her meal.

“But now there’s a stain,” Maura started to whine, then sighed again in resignation. “Well, as long as I’m going to look like some hobo,” and she took a great big bite of spucky, enthusiastic once she’d absorbed the unfamiliar situation. “Mmmghhg zz gd,” she echoed Jane around her mouthful.

Her non-reaction to Jane’s casual mop-up of her front did not go unnoticed, except by the two of them. “Dude, did you see that?” came a furtive whisper from a teen-aged voice nearby. “That hot girl just totally felt up the MILF.”

Maura’s eyes flicked towards Jane, then quickly away. That had happened. Not the way those boys thought it had, but it had happened, and neither of them had thought it was odd, until just now when some stranger had seen it in a whole new way. She hurried to take another bite, so she’d have an excuse not to say anything.

Another voice nearby wondered, slightly quieter but just as excitedly, “Think they’re gonna make out?”

Unlike Maura, Jane did not take another bite, nor did she want an excuse not to say something. She was livid. “Hold my spucky,” she said, so firmly, that Maura reacted before processing. Putting on her best cop face, Jane stood up and turned to face the young punks. “Hey, dumb and dumber.” Jane remembered the glare her mother used to use to send panic into the hearts of her teen-aged brothers, and she tilted her head  _just_  a little bit more. “You better apologize to my friend for calling her that.”

Oddly, the one who had spoken seemed ready to do as ‘requested’, opening his mouth and starting with, “I’m sor-” except that his partner in crime stopped him. “Why should he? This is a free country. He can say what he wants.”

“Jane,” Maura cautioned once she’d swallowed her bite, “it’s okay. They’re kids. They don’t realize how offensive it is to indicate sexual interest of a strange woman within her hearing. It’s merely rude, not illegal.”

“Besides,” added the ballsier of the two boys, “it’s not like it’s a lie. I’d totally LF the M over there.” His friend, the one who’d given the original commentary, set his elbow on his metal-grate picnic table and lay his forehead in his hand, prematurely aging.

Reflexively, Jane reached for her badge. Which she didn’t have. “You an expert on the law, huh? Ever hear of slander? Calling folks things they’re not?” Jane jerked her thumb at Maura, “She’s no M.” Oh please,  _please_  don’t let Maura point out her name starts with an M. “You think whatever the hell you want, kid, but it’s not okay to just say things like that to people. Especially when they’re so far out of your league, you can’t even see her league.” Punctuating her words with finger jabs at the ballsier boy, Jane inadvertently put her own rack near eye level with the boy. Her rack  _and_  her t-shirt’s slogan.

The kid was dumb, but not that dumb. When a rack was presented, he wasn’t going to miss out on looking. Fortunately for him, before he could say another word, he also  _read_  the rack: Property of Boston Police Department. His eyes widened. “Uh… yes, ma’am,” he stammered. “How ’bout if me and my friend just get the hell out of your sight?”

The friend turned to stare. He might have said something stupid, but the shorter and stockier boy had been all set to make it worse, and now he was backing down? Wonders never ceased. Then he, too, caught the reason for sudden prudence. Relief and embarrassment flooded his features. “Yeah. We’ll go start volunteering someplace. Or pick up trash on the highway. Or do anything except talk about your girlfr-” The look on Jane’s face shut him up fast, though he didn’t quite understand why. It was totally obvious, wasn’t it? If something was obviously true, it wasn’t slander. “Um… Never mind.”

Behind Jane, Maura looked like she’d swallowed a frog.

With all the presence of Boston’s top detective, Jane pointed. The boys scrambled and were gone. Jane kept glowering until she was sure they were gone for good and then, of all things, started laughing, “Oh my god, I’m turning into Ma!” She plopped back on the bench and took her spucky back. “Still warm, too, awesome. I kicked ass at tennis, spooked some dumbass kids, defended my best friend  _and_  got a spucky.” Only then did she notice Maura’s expression, “What’s wrong? Find a finger?”

“N-n-n…” Maura tried, but couldn’t quite articulate for a moment. “Jane, he called me…” No. She couldn’t.

“A MILF! I know, what an idiot! No way do you look old enough to be a mom!” Shaking her head, Jane chowed down on lunch. “I mean, you look half the age of those mean girls.” She was very careful not to complain about the ILF part of that comment. Actually, Jane had to agree with the boys on that one –  _OH MY GOD! Brain, shut up!_  Jane crammed food in her mouth to cover the wince.

Contradiction of known facts accomplished the act of speech for Maura. “Actually, I’ve been menstruating since I was thirteen, so I actually could be a mother, very easily, by now. I think he was referring to the fact that I’m visibly older than he is – something he’d have probably noticed if I looked any older than, say, eighteen or nineteen, which I do. That wasn’t the part that took me aback, actually.” She took a bite of her spucky, more careful now to avoid spills, as if she’d explained everything that needed explaining. To her mind, she had. After all, she had taken the MILF comment completely in stride, hadn’t she?

Jane sighed, “Oh, Maura.” Sweet, adorable Maura. “You’re  _not_  a mother, are you?”

“No,” Maura replied earnestly, “but I could be. And look at me, playing tennis on a weekday. That boy had no way of knowing that I’m only off because I’ve been on call for three weekends in a row, or that you’re off because you’ve already accrued almost twice the permitted overtime you’re allowed this month. All he saw was two women who aren’t at work today, and  _usually_ that means people who don’t have standard jobs. As much as we don’t like it, women are more likely to be non-working if they’re stay-home mothers, so while his conclusion was erroneous, it was reasonable, albeit a sign of a limited mind.”

Resting her chin in one hand, Jane felt a slow, dopey smile cross her face. If anyone else talked like that, she’d be bored. Maura amused her. No, better than that, Maura made her feel good. Warm and fuzzy. “Well, I couldn’t argue the ILF, Maur, so I had to defend what I could. You’re gonna drip.” This last was punctuated with a proffered napkin to protect the skirt part of Maura’s dress from the same fate that had befallen the boobage.

Though her hand moved with impressive speed to protect her tennis skirt, Maura’s mind moved even more rapidly. ILF?  _I_ ‘d  _L_ ike to  _F_ …?

No. No, that was what the  _boy_  had said, not what Jane had said.  _Down, girl,_  Maura ordered herself sternly. “Yes, but he also called me your girlfriend.”

Again came the dismissive hand wave. “So did Giovanni. Twice. He actually said, in front of Ma, that I must appreciate Emily’s tits now.” Jane rolled her eyes, clearly at Giovanni and not Maura. “A lot of people say that. Doesn’t bother me.”

Stifling laughter at this new anecdote of which she had not previously heard, Maura explained, “I’m accustomed to getting that from everyone we know. Coworkers say it because we’re two of the few women at the precinct, and we’re good friends. Frankie just likes to tease you, and your mother resents the fact that you have time for me but not for the men she wants to set you up with. It’s not even Giovanni’s fault he saw that, because we purposefully set out to make him see us that way. I suppose it just hadn’t occurred to me that a stranger would see it, too.”

Jane’s lips quirked into a smirk. “Really? That big brain and it never occurred to you?” She finished her spucky and wiped her hands off. “You done? I can drive if you want to finish in the car.” Jane stretched her arms up and over her head popping something in her back and sighing at the release of pressure.

Maura’s eyes took their time, without her permission, admiring Jane’s leanness throughout the stretch, which made her smile as she so often did. By the time Jane turned back around, though, she and her truant eyes were focused again on the bready end of her spucky, from which she’d eaten all the meat, cheese, and vegetables already. “I don’t think I want the last of it. Let’s go. I don’t want to wait another minute to get out of these sweaty clothes.”

Following her friend’s gaze, Jane’s eyebrows jumped at the comment. “Uh, yeah, the bread end’s the worst. You have to make sure not to squeeze too hard, so every bite has the right amount of meat and sauce.” With a gesture at Maura’s stained dress, she added, “Stops things from spillin’ too.” She scooped up their shared garbage without a thought and tossed it in the nearby trash. “Let’s book it before those kids bring back friends.”

“More people to call me a mother?” Maura teased, knowingly skating near the edge of acceptable, friendly banter as the two of them hopped back in the car and pulled away, headed for home.

Jane swatted Maura’s arm and smirked, but didn’t comment further on that topic. The drive to Maura’s was punctuated with multiple calls from Frost, Korsak and the ADA, all of whom wanted various details about the case, which Jane assured them all were in her notes. At the fourth call from Korask, she snapped. “What the hell? Vince, is anyone even  _reading_  my damn case notes! I typed them up and filed them! They’re more legible than the crap you did.”

Vince’s reply was not heartening. “Crap.” Jane turned to Maura, “The server’s being ‘upgraded,’ so they can’t pull my files.” Back to the phone, “When the hell are they supposed to be done? Uh huh… Okay, gimmie the tech’s number.” Hanging up, Jane promptly dialed the tech back and explained, in no uncertain terms, exactly what would happen if access to case files wasn’t back by 2pm, because the DA’s office would miss their filing date, concluding with, “Do you _want_  me to come back to the office? Yeah, didn’t think so.” She snapped her phone shut and slouched in her seat. “I miss being able to slam my phone back in a cradle.”

“Well, I’m glad that destructive behavior has to find a better outlet than an expensive piece of technology. Sports are much more conducive to-”

“Really?” drawled Jane, cutting Maura off.

Maura’s doubletake was subtle, but admirable, as they pulled up to a stop sign. For a moment she didn’t know what to say, but then laughter brought its own response. “You don’t like it when I suggest sex as a panacea,” she pointed out, “so I thought I’d suggest sports instead.”

“I don’t like it when you suggest sex, cause it’s with people like Jorge. Or Dean, or  _Casey_.” The obvious distaste at the idea of sex with Casey was a surprise to Jane. Sometimes when you weren’t thinking, you said the truth. “I don’t want to sleep with any of them,” sighed Jane. If she could have slouched more in her seat, she might have, but her long legs prevented that.

It took a little longer than was strictly necessary for Maura to switch her foot from the brake to the gas pedal, causing the car behind them to blare impatiently, and thus for their takeoff to be a tad less smooth than usual. “You don’t want to sleep with Casey?” she repeated, just to be certain. “Then why did you have me come over and help you find an outfit that would be suitable for getting him into your bed? We picked out  _undergarments_  for him, Jane. Not that they were nearly as nice as what you were already wearing when I got to your place, and I still think you should’ve gone with those instead, but  _waaaaait a minute…_ ” Gears started to turn; one could hear the clicking as she drove.

Jane hid her cringe at the uncomfortable truths on display behind the lurching bite of the seatbelt. “Easy there, leadfoot,” she tried to tease. Her voice didn’t sound right to herself, and she was sure not to Maura. Pretty sure she wasn’t going to get out of this with a joke, Jane started rubbing her palms together. “Look … Look … Yeah. The … underwear.” She sighed. “That may have been on purpose, y’know,” she finally said, sheepishly. “Didn’t work.”

“But Casey wasn’t…” Maura began, and again drew ire from those with whom she shared the road, this time for failing to complete a turn quickly enough through an unprotected left. Her tongue clicked impatiently at herself, and she focused on driving for another mile or so. Finally she reached her home area, so familiar that she could do just about any combination of mental gymnastics and still get to any address within the gated community. “Jane, I want to be certain I understand you, if you’re trying to be understood and not cryptic. What was that plain white cotton underwear supposed to accomplish?”

Oh, so close. But no.

Why did women make this so hard? “It was … Um.” Jane took a deep breath and shoved the words out at once, “Telling you, and Casey, that I wasn’t gonna sleep with him.” They burst forth in a rush and Jane suddenly felt a lot better. Oh. She straightened in her seat and looked relieved. “I was trying to cock block Casey.”

The caramel-haired driver was silent until they pulled into her driveway, where she shut off the car, closed the door via the button on her sun visor, and sat, unmoving and still silent, for another full minute or two.

“And the other?” she asked when not asking had become too difficult. “The lacy black… You had already showered when I got there, so you put that on just for… for what, Jane?”

Looking up at the roof of Maura’s car, Jane mumbled, “For you.” If she could have shoved her toes into the dirt, she would have right there and now. Instead, she turned towards Maura with a self-conscious, self-deprecating smile. She tossed her hands out a little, not moving her arms, and weakly said, “Surprise.”

“Uh.”

Maura’s mouth hung open, as if she’d wanted to speak more, but could not quite form words. She tried again. “Oh. W… Wh…” Half-syllables, good, now try full syllables. Maybe small word or two. “For…  _me_? So I would… be…”

 _Sans_  permission, her hand dropped away from the gear shift and stole towards Jane’s, where it always went when reassurance was needed.

As if Maura’s hand was a life preserver, Jane caught it mid-air. “Yeah,” she mumbled, looking awkward and nervous. “God, I feel like I’m fifteen again,” Jane finally groused. “I was trying to, um, it was a really bad scientific experience-  _experiment_!”

Maura snapped her hand back as if burned, clutching it to her chest. “An  _experiment_?” Now she was offended, and it showed. Offended and hurt. “You were  _playing_  with me?”

What the hell? Jane tried to sort out where she went wrong on that one. “What! No! I was trying to figure out if  _you_  liked  _me_ … y’know, like I like you! Cause … I … Damn it, why the hell are women so complicated! I’m trying to tell you I really like you, Maura! I mean,  _like_  like you!” Clearly that wasn’t good enough. “No, I like Korsak. I … I …” Say it, Rizzoli! “I love  _you_.”

“Uh.” Now she was back to half-syllables. Dazed from the roller coaster ride she’d been on for the last… Really, less than five minutes? Less than two?… Maura opened her car door and walked around the back of the vehicle, more because that was what one did when one arrived at home than because she had a conscious need to go inside. As Jane sat there, head leaning against the head rest of the car, groaning  _what did I do?_  over and over, Maura opened the passenger door and offered a hand up, though her eyes were unfocused, and there could have been considerable doubt as to whether she recognized that she was moving at all. When her friend didn’t move along with her, she twitched her hand:  _notice, take, stand._  “I need water,” she explained, voice gone airy and indistinct. “Come inside. We need water. Dehydrated.”

With a firm whap, Jane hit the back of her head against the head rest before getting out of the car. This action was arrested by the fact that Jane was still wearing her seat belt. “Ack!” she strangled, and then unclipped herself, “Your car’s trying to kill me, Maura,” she complained, taking Maura’s hand out of habit and comfort. Standing by Maura, she looked down at her best friend and that slow, happy, smile. “Water, right.” Jane bumped the car door shut with her hip.

* * *

Still in a mental fog, Maura drew them both glasses of water from the filtered dispenser in the door of her refrigerator; shared half a banana to replace potassium and electrolytes; pointed vaguely towards the guest bathroom for Jane to get her shower, and went off to her own for similar purposes.

Not a word did she speak.

Once hidden away within her safe zone, Maura stripped off the spucky-stained tennis dress, forgot to treat the stain, and entered the shower. Steaming hot water reddened her skin, some light citrusy shower gel rid her of sweat, and still she stood under the stream, staring blankly at her tiles.

Jane had worn black, lacy,  _sexy as hell_  undergarments for  _her_.

And planned to wear plain, white, cotton, slightly worn underthings for the date she had made with the man she’d nearly slept with, twice.

Not quite paying attention to herself, Maura shampooed her hair again, and then used the same shampoo on her body in place of the shower gel, washing a second time. Only after the third conditioning of her hair did she snap out of it, shake her head as if that would help settle everything happening inside it, and sigh. “I am  _such_  a  _nerd._ “

Then another thought came, as if the ability to speak had jarred loose her brain at last. Jane had all but confessed actual, romantic feelings for her, and she had just sat there, then left her alone like some great, stupid article. She hissed in sudden annoyance with herself. “Idiot!” she near-shouted, shut off the water, and flew like the wind to dress, French braid her hair so as to avoid the lengthy process of drying and styling, and ran out to the living room, leaping over Bass along the way. Bass looked at her as she passed by, his expression clearly reading “What…” as he looked up, “The” as he looked to the side, “Hell?” as he stared after his primary caregiver.

“Jane!” she called upon entering the great room and not seeing her friend immediately. “Jane! Oh, no no no no no,” fretted Maura, zooming from room to room. “Jane? Oh, no. Bass, she left! She’s gone, and I didn’t even answer her! Oh, no, Bass, she must think I’m some kind of dummy, or worse. God, she must be feeling just rotten. Jane! Jane, are you still here? Jane!”

Jane had not left. In fact, she watched the entire performance with a seriously delighted and amused expression from the doorway to the guest room where, as directed, she’d showered and put on jeans and a comfy shirt. Still barefoot, socks in hand, Jane voiced what Bass was clearly thinking, “What the hell?” Unlike Bass, Jane started laughing, both at Maura’s fretting and at her leap. “I take it back,” giggled Jane, sliding to the floor as she laughed.

“Jane!” Maura exclaimed once more, this time a joyful cry at the raspy sound of her best friend’s voice, whirling gracefully on one foot and springing over her African spurred tortoise once more. Bass gave up and sucked his head back into his shell as his, for want of a better term, human parent flung herself bodily towards the taller human whose presence he had come to accept as a part of his world. “Jane, you’re still here!” Like a starfish on a rock, she clung, effectively pinning her friend to the floor. “Don’t take it back, please don’t take it back! Why would you take it back?”

The second leap over Bass set off another round of guffaws, and the hug sent Jane from a semi-sitting position to flat assed on the floor, covered in a very soft, kind of bouncy, Dr. Maura Isles.  _What did Maura call that? My lizard brain?_  Jane’s amygdala was doing back flips right now, cheering the hell out of the situation. Seize the moment! Seize the woman!  _If one of us was a dude, we’d have already had sex_ , rationalized Jane, and with her arms pinned by the honey-brunette beauty, she did the only thing her poor brain could think of. She kissed Maura.

It wasn’t a world rocking kiss, it was a, well, it was a teen-ager’s shy idea of a first kiss. Just lips touching each other. But nothing like the dry, raspy kiss you gave your family. This was a ‘hi, I like you’ kiss. Of course, teenagers today would have called it tame, and jeered her. Nor was it a very long kiss. Just a there-it-was kiss. But shy or not, it seemed to be just what the actual doctor ordered. At least, that was what any reasonable person would infer, based on the peppering of kisses Maura bestowed on her best friend’s lips, cheeks, neck, and hands when Jane brought them up to slow them down a tad.

“I take back saying ballet isn’t a sport,” Jane finally said, leaning her head back on the floor when the woman atop her paused in her friendly assault.

“Oh,” Maura replied breathlessly, then beamed. “Well, of course it’s a sport. It’s an athletic endeavor, and there are competitions, and… and you don’t really care, do you?” she broke off, a little abashed. “Well. To be perfectly frank, at the moment, neither do I.”

Jane sighed, working one hand up to gently cup Maura’s face. “I don’t care,” she agreed, looking up at Maura with a chagrined smile. “Are we on the same page now?” Her voice was hopeful, but still a little concerned. Months of cross-purpose conversations seemed to have come to a very delightful tipping point.

“I really hope so,” Maura sighed contentedly as her face tilted towards that calloused, scarred, and infinitely tender touch. “If the page you’re on is the one in which we get up off this floor and… Or not, actually… and stay  _very near_  one another today, then yes, we’re on the same page.”

The laughter bubbled back to the surface and Jane kissed Maura’s nose. It was right there. “Your floor isn’t  _that_  comfortable. And I just got my head around kissing you, Maur. I don’t think I’m up for, um, the next thing.” To underscore her comfort level, Jane kissed Maura, properly, again. “This is good, though.” This is really good.

“I didn’t say… I just meant…” Maura began, then lost her train of thought. “Yeah. That’s really nice.”


End file.
